^''^ -^ 

SEP  rCi  1921 


UvMoti  'BS4S 


THE    EXPOSITOR'S    BIBLE 


EDITED   BY   THE    REV. 

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Editor  of  "  The  Expositor" 


THE    BOOK    OF    THE    TWELVE    PROPHETS 

VOL.    II.-ZEPHANIAH,    NAHUM.    HABAKKUK,    OBADIAH, 

HAGGAI,  ZECHARIAH  I.-VIII.,   "MALACHI,"  JOEL„ 

"ZECHARIAH"  IX.— XIV,    AND   JONAH 


GEORGE    ADAM    SMITH,    D.D.,    LL.D. 


NEW  YORK 
A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON 

51    EAST    TENTH    STREET 
1898 


^ 

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^i^^mc?^ 


THE    BOOK  rai9'^'' 

THE    TWELVE    PROPHETS 

COMMONLY  CALLED  THE  MINOR 


GEORGE   ADAM   SMITH,   D.D.,   LL.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF   HEBREW  AND  OLD  TESTAMENT  EXEGESIS 
FREE    CHURCH  COLLEGE,   GLASGOW 


1100 


IN  TWO    VOLUMES 

VOL.    II.— ZEPHANIAH,    NAHUM,    HABAKKUK,    OBADIAH, 

HAGGAI,  ZECHARIAH   I.— VIII.,   "MALACHI,"  JOEL, 

"ZECHARIAH  "    IX.-XIV.    AND    JONAH 

WITH   HISTORICAL   AND    CRITICAL   INTRODUCTIONS 


NEW    YORK 

A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON 

51    EAST    TENTH    STREET 


PREFACE 

THE  first  volume  on  the  Twelve  Prophets  dealt 
with  the  three  who  belonged  to  the  Eighth 
Century :  Amos,  Hosea  and  Micah.  This  second 
volume  includes  the  other  nine  books  arranged  in 
chronological  order  :  Zephaniah,  Nahum  and  Habak- 
kuk,  of  the  Seventh  Century ;  Obadiah,  of  the  Exile  ; 
Haggai,  Zechariah  i. — viii.,  "  Malachi "  and  Joel,  of 
the  Persian  Period,  538 — 331  ;  ''Zechariah"  ix. — xiv. 
and  the  Book  of  Jonah,  of  the  Greek  Period,  which 
began  in  332,  the  date  of  Alexander's  Syrian  campaign. 
The  same  plan  has  been  followed  as  in  Volume  I. 
A  historical  introduction  is  offered  to  each  period. 
To  each  prophet  are  given,  first  a  chapter  of  critical 
introduction,  and  then  one  or  more  chapters  of  ex- 
position. A  complete  translation  has  been  furnished, 
with  critical  and  explanatory  notes.  All  questions 
of  date  and  of  text,  and  nearly  all  of  interpretation, 
have  been  confined  to  the  introductions  and  the 
notes,  so  that  those  who  consult  the  volume  only 
for  expository  purposes  will  find  the  exposition  un- 
encumbered by  the  discussion  of  technical  points. 

b 


PREFACE 


The  necessity  of  including  within  one  volume  so 
many  prophets,  scattered  over  more  than  three 
centuries,  and  each  of  them  requiring  a  separate 
introduction,  has  reduced  the  space  available  for  the 
practical  application  of  their  teaching  to  modern  life. 
But  this  is  the  less  to  be  regretted,  that  the  contents 
of  the  nine  books  before  us  are  not  so  applicable 
to  our  own  day,  as  we  have  found  their  greater 
predecessors  to  be.  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
they  form  a  more  varied  introduction  to  Old  Testament 
Criticism,  while,  by  the  long  range  of  time  which  they 
cover,  and  the  many  stages  of  religion  to  which  they 
belong,  they  afford  a  wider  view  of  the  development 
of  prophecy.  Let  us  look  for  a  little  at  these  two 
points. 

I.  To  Old  Testament  Criticism  these  books  furnish 
valuable  introduction — some  of  them,  like  Obadiah,  Joel 
and  ''  Zechariah "  ix. — xiv.,  by  the  great  variety  of 
opinion  that  has  prevailed  as  to  their  dates  or  their 
relation  to  other  prophets  with  whom  they  have  pas- 
sages in  common  ;  some,  like  Zechariah  and  "  Malachi," 
by  their  relation  to  the  Law,  in  the  light  of  modern 
theories  of  the  origin  of  the  latter ;  and  some,  like 
Joel  and  Jonah,  by  the  question  whether  we  are  to 
read  them  as  history,  or  as  allegories  of  history, 
or  as  apocalypse.  That  is  to  say,  these  nine  books 
raise,  besides  the  usual  questions  of  genuineness 
and  integrity,    every    other    possible  problem    of   Old 


PREFACE  vii 

Testament  Criticism.  It  has,  therefore,  been  neces- 
sary to  make  the  critical  introductions  full  and  detailed. 
The  enormous  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  dates 
of  some  must  start  the  suspicion  of  arbitrariness,  unless 
there  be  included  in  each  case  a  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  criticism,  so  as  to  exhibit  to  the  English  reader 
the  principles  and  the  evidence  of  fact  upon  which 
that  criticism  is  based,  I  am  convinced  that  what 
is  chiefly  required  just  now  by  the  devout  student  of 
the  Bible  is  the  opportunity  to  judge  for  himself  how 
far. Old  Testament  Criticism  is  an  adult  science;  with 
what  amount  of  reasonableness  it  has  been  prosecuted  ; 
how  gradually  its  conclusions  have  been  reached,  how 
jealously  they  have  been  contested ;  and  how  far, 
amid  the  many  varieties  of  opinion  which  must 
always  exist  with  reference  to  facts  so  ancient  and 
questions  so  obscure,  there  has  been  progress  towards 
agreement  upon  the  leading  problems.  But,  besides 
the  accounts  of  past  criticism  given  in  this  volume, 
the  reader  will  find  in  each  case  an  independent 
attempt  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion.  This  has  not  always 
been  successful.  A  number  of  points  have  been  left 
in  doubt ;  and  even  where  results  have  been  stated 
with  some  degree  of  positiveness,  the  reader  need 
scarcely  be  warned  (after  what  was  said  in  the  Pre- 
face to  Vol.  I.)  that  many  of  these  must  necessarily 
be  provisional.  But,  in  looking  back  from  the  close 
of  this  work  upon  the  discussions  which  it  contains. 


viii  PREFACE 

I  am  more  than  ever  convinced  of  the  extreme  pro- 
babiHty  of  most  of  the  conclusions.  Among  these 
are  the  following  :  that  the  correct  interpretation  of 
Habakkuk  is  to  be  found  in  the  direction  of  the  posi- 
tion to  which  Budde's  ingenious  proposal  has  been 
carried  on  pages  123  ff.  with  reference  to  Egypt;  that 
the  most  of  Obadiah  is  to  be  dated  from  the  sixth 
century ;  that  *^  Malachi "  is  an  anonymous  work 
from  the  eve  of  Ezra's  reforms ;  that  Joel  follows 
"  Malachi "  ;  and  that  "  Zechariah  "  ix. — xiv.  has  been 
rightly  assigned  by  Stade  to  the  early  years  of  the 
Greek  Period.  1  have  ventured  to  contest  Kosters* 
theory  that  there  was  no  return  of  Jewish  exiles  under 
Cyrus,  and  am  the  more  disposed  to  believe  his 
strong  argument  inconclusive,  not  only  upon  a  review 
of  the  reasons  I  have  stated  in  Chap.  XVI.,  but  on  this 
ground  also,  that  many  of  its  chief  adherents  in  this 
country  and  Germany  have  so  modified  it  as  virtually 
to  give  up  its  main  contention.  I  think,  too,  there 
can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  substantial  authenticity 
of  Zephaniah  ii.  (except  the  verses  on  Moab  and 
Ammon)  and  iii.  1-13,  of  Habakkuk  ii.  5  ff.,  and  of  the 
whole  of  Haggai ;  or  as  to  the  ungenuine  character  of 
the  lyric  piece  in  Zechariah  ii.  and  the  intrusion  of 
"Malachi"  ii.  11-13^.  On  these  and  smaller  points 
the  reader  will  find  full  discussion  at  the  proper  places. 
.  [I  may  here  add  a  word  or  two  upon  some  of  the 
critical   conclusions   reached    in   Vol.    I.,    which   have 


PREFACE  ix 

been  recently  contested.  The  student  will  find  strong 
grounds  offered  by  Canon  Driver  in  his  Joel  and 
Amos  ^  for  the  authenticity  of  those  passages  in  Amos 
which,  following  other  critics,  I  regarded  or  suspected 
aj»  not  authentic.  It  makes  one  diffident  in  one's 
opinions  when  Canon  Driver  supports  Professors 
Kuenen  and  Robertson  Smith  on  the  other  side. 
But  on  a  survey  of  the  case  I  am  unable  to  feel  that 
even  they  have  removed  what  they  admit  to  be 
*^  forcible "  objections  to  the  authorship  by  Amos  of 
the  passages  in  question.  They  seem  to  me  to  have 
established  not  more  than  a  possibility  that  the 
passages  are  authentic ;  and  on  the  whole  I  still  feel 
that  the  probability  is  in  the  other  direction.  If  I  am 
right,  then  I  think  that  the  date  of  the  apostrophes 
to  Jehovah's  creative  power  which  occur  in  the 
Book  of  Amos,  and  the  reference  to  astral  deities  in 
chap.  V.  27,  may  be  that  which  I  have  suggested  on 
pages  8  and  9  of  this  volume.  Some  critics  have 
charged  me  with  inconsistency  in  denying  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  epilogue  to  Amos  while  defending  that 
of  the  epilogue  to  Hosea.  The  two  cases,  as  my 
arguments  proved,  are  entirely  different.  Nor  do  I 
see  any  reason  to  change  the  conclusions  of  Vol.  I. 
upon  the  questions  of  the  authenticity  of  various 
parts  of  Micah.] 

The  text  of  the  nine  prophets  treated  in  this  volume 


*  Cambridge  Bible  for  Schools,  1897 


X  PREFACE 

has  presented  even  more  difficulties  than  that  of  the 
three  treated  in  Vol.  I.  And  these  difficulties  must 
be  my  apology  for  the  delay  of  this  volume. 

2.  But  the  critical  and  textual  value  of  our  nine 
books  is  far  exceeded  by  the  historical.  Each  exhibits 
a  development  of  Hebrew  prophecy  of  the  greatest 
interest.  From  this  point  of  view,  indeed,  the  volume 
might  be  entitled  ^'  The  Passing  of  the  Prophet." 
For  throughout  our  nine  books  we  see  the  spirit 
and  the  style  of  the  classic  prophecy  of  Israel 
gradually  dissolving  into  other  forms  of  religious 
thought  and  feeling.  The  clear  start  from  the  facts 
of  the  prophet's  day,  the  ancient  truths  about 
Jehovah  and  Israel,  and  the  direct  appeal  to  the 
conscience  of  the  prophet's  contemporaries,  are  not 
always  given,  or  when  given  are  mingled,  coloured 
and  warped  by  other  religious  interests,  both  present 
and  future,  which  are  even  powerful  enough  to  shake 
the  ethical  absolutism  of  the  older  prophets.  With 
Nahum  and  Obadiah  the  ethical  is  entirely  missed 
in  the  presence  of  the  claims — and  we  cannot  deny 
that  they  were  natural  claims — of  the  long-suffering 
nation's  hour  of  revenge  upon  her  heathen  tyrants. 
With  Zephaniah  prophecy,  still  austerely  ethical, 
passes  under  the  shadow  of  apocalypse ;  and  the 
future  is  solved,  not  upon  purely  historical  lines,  but  by 
the  intervention  of  "supernatural"  elements.  With 
Habakkuk  the  ideals  of  the  older  prophets  encounter 


PREFACE 


the  shock  of  the   facts   of  experience  :   we   have  the 
prophet  as  sceptic.      Upon   the   other   margin  of  the 
Exile,  Haggai  and  Zechariah  (i.— viii.),  although  they 
are  as  practical  as  any  of  their  predecessors,  exhibit 
the    influence    of  the    exilic    developments   of  ritual, 
angelology  and  apocalypse.     God   appears  further  off 
from  Zechariah  than  from  the  prophets  of  the  eighth 
century,  and  in  need  of  mediators,  human  and  super- 
human.     With    Zechariah   the    priest    has    displaced 
the  prophet,  and  it  is  very  remarkable   that   no  place 
is  found  for  the.  latter  beside  the  two  sons  of  oil,  the 
political  and   priestly  heads  of  the    community,  who, 
according  to  the  Fifth  Vision,  stand  in  the  presence 
of  God   and    between    them    feed    the   religious    life 
of  Israel.     Nearly   sixty   years   later    "  Malachi "   ex- 
hibits the  working  of  Prophecy  within  the  Law,  and 
begins  to  employ  the  didactic  style  of  the  later  Rab- 
binism.     Joel  starts,  like  any  older  prophet,  from  the 
facts  of  his  own  day,   but  these  hurry  him  at  once 
into   apocalypse;   he   calls,  as   thoroughly  as   any   of 
his  predecessors,  to  repentance,  but  under  the  immi- 
nence of  the  Day  of  the  Lord,  with  its  ''supernatural" 
terrors,   he  mentions  no  special  sin   and  enforces  no 
single  virtue.     The  civic   and  personal   ethics  of  the 
earlier   prophets   are    absent.      In   the    Greek  Period, 
the    oracles    now   numbered    from   the   ninth   to   the 
fourteenth  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Zechariah  repeat 
to  aggravation  the   exulting   revenge  of  Nahum   and 


xii  PREFACE 

Obadiah,  without  the  strong  style  or  the  hold  upon 
history  which  the  former  exhibits,  and  show  us 
prophecy  still  further  enwrapped  in  apocalypse.  But 
in  the  Book  of  Jonah,  though  it  is  parable  and 
not  history,  we  see  a  great  recovery  and  expansion 
of  the  best  elements  of  prophecy.  God's  character 
and  Israel's  true  mission  to  the  world  are  revealed  in 
the  spirit  of  Hosea  and  of  the  Seer  of  the  Exile,  with 
much  of  the  tenderness,  the  insight,  the  analysis  of 
character  and  even  the  humour  of  classic  prophecy. 
These  qualities  raise  the  Book  of  Jonah,  though  it 
is  probably  the  latest  of  our  Twelve,  to  the  highest 
rank  among  them.  No  book  is  more  worthy  to  stand 
by  the  side  of  Isaiah  xl. — Iv. ;  none  is  nearer  in 
spirit  to  the  New  Testament. 

All  this  gives  unity  to  the  study  of  prophets  so  far 
separate  in  time,  and  so  very  distinct  in  character,  from 
each  other.  From  Zephaniah  to  Jonah,  or  over  a  period 
of  three  centuries,  they  illustrate  the  dissolution  of 
Prophecy  and  its  passage  into  other  forms  of  religion. 

The  scholars,  to  whom  every  worker  in  this  field 
is  indebted,  are  named  throughout  the  volume.  I 
regret  that  Nowack's  recent  commentary  on  the  Minor 
Prophets  (Gottingen  :  Vandenhoeck  &  Ruprecht) 
reached  me  too  late  for  use  (except  in  footnotes)  upon 
the  earlier  of  the  nine  prophets. 

GEORGE   ADAM   SMITH. 


CONTENTS    OF    VOL.    II. 

PAGE 

Preface     v 

Chronological  Tables     ....       Facing  p,  j 

INTRODUCTION    TO    THE    PROPHETS    OF 
THE    SEVENTH    CENTURY 

CHAP. 

L    THE    SEVENTH    CENTURY    BEFORE   CHRIST  .  .         3 

1.  Reaction  under  Manasseh  and  Amon  (695? — 639). 

2.  The  Early  Years  of  Josiah  (639 — 625) :  Jeremiah 

and  Zephaniah. 

3.  The    Rest    of    the    Century    (625 — 586)  :    The 

Fall  of  Niniveh  ;  Nahum  and  Habakkuk. 

ZEPHANIAH 

11,    THE   BOOK   OF   ZEPHANIAH 35 

III.  THE   PROPHET   AND   THE   REFORMERS       .  .  .46 

Zephaniah  i. — ii.  3. 

IV.  NINIVE   DELENDA 6 1 

Zephaniah  ii.  4-15. 

V.    SO    AS    BY    FIRE 67 

Zephaniah  iii, 

xiii 


CONTENTS 


NAHUM 

CHAP.  PAGE 

VI.    THE    BOOK    OF    NAHUM  .  .  .  .  -77 

1.  The  Position  of  Elkosh. 

2.  The  Authenticity  of  Chap,  i, 

3.  The  Date  of  Chaps,  ii.  and  iii. 

VII.    THE   VENGEANCE   OF   THE   LORD    .  .  .  .90 

Nahum  i. 

VIII.    THE   SIEGE    AND    FALL   OF   NINIVEH         .  .  .96 

Nahum  ii.  and  iii. 

HABAKKUK 

IX.    THE   BOOK   OF   HABAKKUK 1x5 

1.  Chap.  i.  2 — ii.  4  (or  8). 

2.  Chap.  ii.  5-20. 

3.  Chap.  iii. 

X.  THE   PROPHET   AS   SCEPTIC 1 29 

Habakkuk  i. — ii.  4. 

XI.  TYRANNY   IS   SUICIDE 1 43 

Habakkuk  ii.   5-20. 

XII.  "in    THE    MIDST    OF   THE    YEARS  "  .  .  .    149 

Habakkuk   iii, 

OBADIAH 

XIII.  THE    BOOK   OF    OBADIAH 1 63 

XIV.  EDOM    AND    ISRAEL 177 

Obadiah    I -2 1. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION   TO    THE    PROPHETS    OF 
THE   PERSIAN  PERIOD 

(539—331    B-C.) 
CHAP.  PAGE 

XV.    ISRAEL   UNDER   THE   PERSIANS    .  .  .  .    187 

XVI.    FROM     THE     RETURN     FROM     BABYLON     TO     THE 

BUILDING   OF   THE   TEMPLE    (53^— S^^  B.C.)         .    19S 
With  a  Discussion  of  Professor  Kosters'  Theory. 


HAGGAI 

XVII.    THE   BOOK   OF   HAGGAI 225 

XVIII.    HAGGAI    AND   THE   BUILDING   OF   THE   TEMPLE      .    234 
Haggai  i.,  ii. 

1.  The  Call  to  Build  (Chap.  i.). 

2.  Courage,  Zerubbabel  !  Courage,  Jehoshua  and 

ALL  the  Peopi,e  !  (Chap.  ii.  1-9). 

3.  The   Power  of  the  Unclean  (Chap.  ii.  10-19). 

4.  The  Reinvestment  of  Israel's  Hope  (Chap.  ii. 

20-23). 

ZECHARIAH 

il.-VIII.) 
XIX.   THE   BOOK   OF   ZECHARIAH   (l. — VIII.)  .  .    255 

XX.   ZECHARIAH   THE    PROPHET  .  .  .  .264 

ZECHARIAH    i.    1-6,    ETC.  ;    EzRA    V.    I,    vi.    14. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

XXI.    THE    VISIONS    OF   ZECHARIAH         ....    273 
Zechariah  i.  7 — vi. 

1.  The  Influences  which  Moulded  the  Visions. 

2.  General  Features  of  the  Visions. 

3.  Exposition  of  the  Several  Visions: 
The  First:  The  Angel- Horsemen  (i.  7-17). 

The   Second  :   The    Four  Horns  and    the   Four 

Smiths  (i.  18-21    Eng.). 
The  Third  :  The  City  of  Peace  (ii.   1-5  Eng.). 
The  Fourth  :  The  High  Priest  and  the  Satan  (iii.). 
The    Fifth  :    The  Temple  Candlestick   and   the 

Two  Olive-Trees  (iv.). 
The  Sixth:  The  Winged  Volume  (v,  1-4). 
The  Seventh  :  The  Woman  in  the  Barrel  (v.  5-1  i). 
The  Eighth  :  The  Chariots  of  the  Four  Winds 

(vi.  1-8). 
The  Result  of  the  Visions  (vi.  9-15). 

XXII.    THE   ANGELS   OF   THE   VISIONS  .  .  •    310 

Zechariah  i.  7 — vi.  8. 

XXIII.    "the    SEED    OF    PEACE"  ....    32O 

Zechariah  vii.,  viii. 

''MALACHI" 

XXIV.    THE    BOOK    OF    "  MALACHI  "        .  .  .  .    33 1 

XXV.    FROM    ZECHARIAH    TO    "  MALACHI  "    .  .  .    34I 

XXVI.    PROPHECY   WITHIN    THE    LAW    ....    348 
"  Malachi  "  i. — iv.  (Eng.). 

I.  God's  Love   for   Israel  and   Hatred  of  Edom 
(i.  2-5). 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE. 

2.  "Honour  Thy  Father  "  (i.  6-14). 

3.  The  Priesthood  of  Knowledge  (ii.  1-9), 

4.  The  Cruelty  of  Divorce  (ii.  10-16). 

5.  '*  Where  is  the  God  of  Judgment?"  (ii.  17 — iii,  5). 

6.  Repentance  by  Tithes  (iii.  6-12). 

7.  The  Judgment  to  Come  (iii.  13 — iv.  2  Eng.). 

8.  The  Return  of  Elijah  (iv.  3-5  Eng.). 

JOEL 

XXVII.    THE   BOOK   OF  JOEL 375 

1.  The  Date  of  the  Book 

2.  The  Interpretation  of  the  Book. 

3.  State   of   the   Text    and   the    Style    of    the 

Book. 

XXVIII.    THE   LOCUSTS  AND   THE   DAY   OF   THE    LORD        .    39^ 
Joel  i. — ii.  17. 

XXIX.    PROSPERITY    AND  THE   SPIRIT    .  .  .  .    41S 

Joel  ii.  18-32  (Eng.). 

1.  The  Return  of  Prosperity  (ii.   19-27). 

2.  The  Outpouring  of  the  Spirit  (ii.  28-32). 

XXX.    THE   JUDGMENT   OF   THE   HEATHEN  .  .  ♦431 

Joel  iii.  (Eng.). 

INTRODUCTION   TO    THE    PROPHETS    OF 
THE    GRECIAN  PERIOD 

(From  331  Onwards) 
XXXI.    ISRAEL   AND   THE   GREEKS  ....    439 


CONTENTS 


ZECHARIAW 


{IX.-XIV.) 

CHAP. 

XXXII. 

"  ZECHARIAH  "    IX. — XIV. 

PAGE 

•  449 

XXXIII.    THE    CONTENTS    OF    "  ZECHARIAH  "    IX. — XIV.     .    463 

1.  The  Coming  of  the  Greeks  (ix.  1-8). 

2.  The  Prince  of  Peace  (ix.  9-12). 

3.  The  Slaughter  of  the  Greeks  (ix.   13-17). 

4.  Against  the  Teraphim  and  Sorcerers  (x.  i,  2). 

5.  Against  Evil  Shepherds  (x.  3-12). 

6.  War  upon  the  Syrian  Tyrants  (xi.  1-3). 

7.  The    Rejection    and     Murder    of    the    Good 

Shepherd  (xi.  4-17,  xiii.  7-9). 

8.  Judah  versus  Jerusalem  (xii.  1-7). 

9.  Four    Results    of    Jerusalem's    Deliverance 

(xii.  8 — xiii.  6). 

10.  Judgment  of  the  Heathen  and  Sanctifi cation 
of  Jerusalem  (xiv.). 

JONAH 

XXXIV.    THE   BOOK   OF   JONAH 493 

1.  The  Date  of  the  Book. 

2.  The  Character  of  the  Book. 

3.  The  Purpose  of  the  Book. 

4.  Our  Lord's  Use  of  the  Book. 

5.  The  Unity  of  the  Book. 

XXXV.    THE    GREAT   REFUSAL 514 

Jonah  i. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

XXXVI.    THE     GREAT     FISH    AND     WHAT    IT    MEANS — 

THE    PSALM  .  .  .  .  .  .523 

Jonah  ii. 

XXXVII.    THE   REPENTANCE   OF   THE   CITY      .  .  .    529 

Jonah  iii. 

XXXVIII.  Israel's  jealousy  of  jehovah    .        .        .  536 

Jonah  iv. 
INDEX   OF    PROPHETS 543 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  PROPHETS  OF  THE 
SEVENTH  CENTURY 


VOL.    II, 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE  CHRIST 

THE  three  prophets  who  were  treated  in  the  first 
volume  of  this  work  belonged  to  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ :  if  Micah  lived  into  the  seventh  his 
labours  were  over  by  675.  The  next  group  of  our 
twelve,  also  three  in  number,  Zephaniah,  Nahum  and 
Habakkuk,  did  not  appear  till  after  630.  To  make  our 
study  continuous  ^  we  must  now  sketch  the  course 
of  Israel's  history  between. 

In  another  volume  of  this  series,^  some  account  was 
given  of  the  religious  progress  of  Israel  from  Isaiah 
and  the  Deliverance  of  Jerusalem  in  701  to  Jeremiah 
and  the  Fall  of  Jerusalem  in  587.  Isaiah's  strength 
was  bent  upon  establishing  the  inviolableness  of  Zion. 
Zion,  he  said,  should  not  be  taken,  and  the  people, 
though  cut  to  their  roots,  should  remain  planted  in  their 
own  land,  the  stock  of  a  noble  nation  in  the  latter 
days.  But  Jeremiah  predicted  the  ruin  both  of  City 
and  Temple,  summoned  Jerusalem's  enemies  against 
her  in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  and  counselled  his  people 
to  submit  to  them.  This  reversal  of  the  prophetic 
ideal  had  a  twofold  reason.  In  the  first  place  the 
moral  condition  of  Israel  was  worse  in  600  b.c.  than  it 
had  been  in  700 ;  another  century  had  shown  how 
much  the  nation  needed  the  penalty  and  purgation  of 

'  See  Vol.  I.,  p.  viii.     ^  Expositor's  Bible,  Isaiah xl. — Ixvi.,  Chap.  II. 

3 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


exile.  But  secondly,  however  the  inviolableness  of 
Jerusalem  had  been  required  in  the  interests  of  pure 
religion  in  701,  religion  had  now  to  show  that  it  was 
independent  even  of  Zion  and  of  Israel's  political 
survival.  Our  three  prophets  of  the  eighth  century 
(as  well  as  Isaiah  himself)  had  indeed  preached  a  gospel 
which  implied  this,  but  it  was  reserved  to  Jeremiah  to 
prove  that  the  existence  of  state  and  temple  was  not 
indispensable  to  faith  in  God,  and  to  explain  the  ruin 
of  Jerusalem,  not  merely  as  a  well-merited  penance, 
but  as  the  condition  of  a  more  spiritual  intercourse 
between  Jehovah  and  His  people. 

It  is  our  duty  to  trace  the  course  of  events  through 
the  seventh  century,  which  led  to  this  change  of  the 
standpoint  of  prophecy,  and  which  moulded  the  messages 
especially  of  Jeremiah's  contemporaries,  Zephaniah, 
Nahum  and  Habakkuk.  We  may  divide  the  century 
into  three  periods :  First,  that  of  the  Reaction  and 
Persecution  under  Manasseh  and  Amon,  from  695 
or  690  to  639,  during  which  prophecy  was  silent  or 
anonymous ;  Second,  that  of  the  Early  Years  of  Josiah, 
639  to  625,  near  the  end  of  which  we  meet  with  the 
young  Jeremiah  and  Zephaniah ;  Third^  the  Rest  of 
the  Century,  625  to  600,  covering  the  Decline  and  Fall 
of  Niniveh,  and  the  prophets  Nahum  and  Habakkuk, 
with  an  addition  carrying  on  the  history  to  the  Fall  of 
Jerusalem  in  587-6. 

I.  Reaction  under  Manasseh  and  Amon  (695  ? — 639). 

Jerusalem  was  delivered  in  701,  and  the  Assyrians 
kept   away    from    Palestine    for   twenty-three    years. ^ 

*  It  is  uncertain  whether  Hezekiah  was  an  Assyrian  vassal  during 
these  years,  as  his  successor  Manasseh  is  recorded  to  have  been 
in  676. 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE   CHRIST  5 

Judah  had  peace,  and  Hezekiah  was  free  to  devote  his 
latter  days  to  the  work  of  purifying  the  worship  of  his 
people.  What  he  exactly  achieved  is  uncertain.  The 
historian  imputes  to  him  the  removal  of  the  high  places, 
the  destruction  of  all  Maggeboth  and  Asheras,  and  of 
the  brazen  serpent.^  That  his  measures  were  drastic 
is  probable  from  the  opinions  of  Isaiah,  who  was  their 
inspiration,  and  proved  by  the  reaction  which  they  pro- 
voked when  Hezekiah  died.  The  removal  of  the  high 
places  and  the  concentration  of  the  national  worship 
within  the  Temple  would  be  the  more  easy  that  the 
provincial  sanctuaries  had  been  devastated  by  the 
Assyrian  invasion,  and  that  the  shrine  of  Jehovah  was 
glorified  by  the  raising  of  the  siege  of  701. 

While  the  first  of  Isaiah's  great  postulates  for  the 
future,  the  inviolableness  of  Zion,  had  been  fulfilled,  the 
second,  the  reign  of  a  righteous  prince  in  Israel,  seemed 
doomed  to  disappointment.  Hezekiah  died  early  in 
the  seventh  century,^  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son 
Manasseh,  a  boy  of  twelve,  who  appears  to  have  been 
captured  by  the  party  whom  his  father  had  opposed. 
The  few  years'  peace — peace  in  Israel  was  always 
dangerous  to  the  health  of  the  higher  religion — the  in- 
terests of  those  who  had  suffered  from  the  reforms,  the 
inevitable  reaction  which  a  rigorous  puritanism  provokes 
— these  swiftly  reversed  the  religious  fortunes  of  Israel. 
Isaiah's  and  Micah's  predictions  of  the  final  overthrow 
of  Assyria  seemed  falsified,  when  in  681  the  more 
vigorous  Asarhaddon  succeeded  Sennacherib,  and  in 
6yZ  swept  the  long  absent  armies  back  upon  Syria. 

1  2  Kings  xviii.  4. 

2  The  exact  date  is  quite  uncertain;  695  is  suggested  on  the 
chronological  table  prefixed  to  this  volume,  but  it  may  have  been 
690  or  685. 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


Sidon  was  destroyed,  and  twenty-two  princes  of 
Palestine  immediately  yielded  their  tribute  to  the  con- 
queror. Manasseh  was  one  of  them,  and  his  political 
homage  may  have  brought  him,  as  it  brought  Ahaz, 
within  the  infection  of  foreign  idolatries.^  Everything, 
in  short,  worked  for  the  revival  of  that  eclectic  paganism 
which  Hezekiah  had  striven  to  stamp  out.  The  high 
places  were  rebuilt ;  altars  were  erected  to  Baal,  with 
the  sacred  pole  of  Asherah,  as  in  the  time  of  Ahab  ;  ^ 
shrines  to  the  host  of  heaven  defiled  the  courts  of 
Jehovah's  house ;  there  was  a  recrudescence  of  sooth- 
saying, divination  and  traffic  with  the  dead. 

But  it  was  all  very  different  from  the  secure  and 
sunny  temper  which  Amos  had  encountered  in  Northern 
Israel.^  The  terrible  Assyrian  invasions  had  come 
between.  Life  could  never  again  feel  so  stable.  Still 
more  destructive  had  been  the  social  poisons  which 
our  prophets  described  as  sapping  the  constitution  of 
Israel  for  nearly  three  generations.  The  rural  sim- 
plicity was  corrupted  by  those  economic  changes  which 

'  Cf.  McCurdy,  History,  Prophecy  and  the  Monuments,  §  799. 

^  Stade  {Gesch.  des  Volkes  Israel,  I.,  pp.  627  f.)  denies  to  Manasseh 
the  reconstruction  of  the  high  places,  the  Baal  altars  and  the  Asheras, 
for  he  does  not  believe  that  Hezekiah  had  succeeded  in  destroying 
these.  He  takes  2  Kings  xxi.  3,  which  describes  these  reconstructions, 
as  a  late  interpolation  rendered  necessary  to  reconcile  the  tradition 
that  Hezekiah's  reforms  had  been  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Deuteronomy, 
with  the  fact  that  there  were  still  high  places  in  the  land  when 
Josiah  began  his  reforms.  Further,  Stade  takes  the  rest  of  2  Kings 
xxi.  25-7  as  also  an  interpolation,  but  unlike  verse  3  an  accurate 
account  of  Manasseh's  idolatrous  institutions,  because  it  is  corrobo- 
rated by  the  account  of  Josiah's  reforms,  2  Kings  xxiii.  Stade  also 
discusses  this  passage  in  Z.A.T.W.,  1886,  pp.  186  ff. 

'  See  Vol.  I.,  p.  41.  In  addition  to  the  reasons  of  the  change 
given  above,  we  must  remember  that  we  are  now  treating,  not  of 
Northern  Israel,  but  of  the  more  stern  and  sullen  Judaeans. 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE  CHRIST  7 

Micah  bewails.  With  the  ousting  of  the  old  families 
from  the  soil,  a  thousand  traditions,  memories  and 
habits  must  have  been  broken,  which  had  preserved 
the  people's  presence  of  mind  in  days  of  sudden 
disaster,  and  had  carried  them,  for  instance,  through  so 
long  a  trial  as  the  Syrian  wars.  Nor  could  the  blood 
of  Israel  have  run  so  pure  after  the  luxury  and 
licentiousness  described  by  Hosea  and  Isaiah.  The 
novel  obligations  of  commerce,  the  greed  to  be  rich, 
the  increasing  distress  among  the  poor,  had  strained 
the  joyous  temper  of  that  nation  of  peasants'  sons, 
whom  we  met  with  Amos,  and  shattered  the  nerves 
of  their  rulers.  There  is  no  word  of  fighting  in 
Manasseh's  days,  no  word  of  revolt  against  the  tyrant. 
Perhaps  also  the  intervening  puritanism,  which  had 
failed  to  give  the  people  a  permanent  faith,  had 
at  least  awakened  within  them  a  new  conscience. 

At  all  events  there  is  now  no  more  ease  in  Zion^  but 
a  restless  fear,  driving  the  people  to  excesses  of 
religious  zeal.  We  do  not  read  of  the  happy  country 
festivals  of  the  previous  century,  nor  of  the  careless 
pride  of  that  sudden  wealth  which  built  vast  palaces 
and  loaded  the  altar  of  Jehovah  with  hecatombs.  The 
full-blooded  patriotism,  which  at  least  kept  ritual  in 
touch  with  clean  national  issues,  has  vanished.  The 
popular  religion  is  sullen  and  exasperated.  It  takes 
the  form  of  sacrifices  of  frenzied  cruelty  and  lust. 
Children  are  passed  through  the  fire  to  Moloch,  and 
the  Temple  is  defiled  by  the  orgies  of  those  who  abuse 
their  bodies  to  propitiate  a  foreign  and  a  brutal  god.^ 

But  the  most  certain  consequence  of  a  religion  whose 
nerves  are  on  edge  is  persecution,  and  this  raged  all 

'  2  Kings  xxi.,  xxiii. 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


the  earlier  years  of  Manasseh.  The  adherents  of  the 
purer  faith  were  slaughtered,  and  Jerusalem  drenched  ^ 
with  innocent  blood.  Her  own  sword,  says  Jeremiah, 
devoured  the  prophets  like  a  destroying  lion? 

It  is  significant  that  all  that  has  come  down  to  us 
from  this  "  killing  time "  is  anonymous ;  ^  we  do  not 
meet  with  our  next  group  of  public  prophets  till 
Manasseh  and  his  like-minded  son  have  passed  away. 
Yet  prophecy  was  not  wholly  stifled.  Voices  were 
raised  to  predict  the  exile  and  destruction  of  the 
nation.  Jehovah  spake  by  His  servants  ;  *  while  others 
wove  into  the  prophecies  of  an  Amos,  a  Hosea  or  an 
Isaiah  some  application  of  the  old  principles  to  the 
new  circumstances.  It  is  probable,  for  instance,  that 
the  extremely  doubtful  passage  in  the  Book  of  Amos, 
V.  26  f.,  which  imputes  to  Israel  as  a  whole  the  worship 
of  astral  deities  from  Assyria,  is  to  be  assigned  to  the 
reign  of  Manasseh.  In  its  present  position  it  looks 
very  like  an  intrusion  :  nowhere  else  does  Amos  charge 
his  generation  with  serving  foreign  gods  ;  and  certainly 
in  all  the  history  of  Israel  we  could  not  find  a  more 
suitable  period  for  so  specific  a  charge  than  the 
days  when  into  the  central  sanctuary  of  the  national 
worship  images  were  introduced  of  the  host  of  heaven, 
and  the  nation  was,  in  consequence,  threatened  with 
exile.^ 

'  Filled  from  mouth  to  mouth  (2  Kings  xxi.  16). 

^  Jer.  ii.  30. 

^  We  have  already  seen  that  there  is  no  reason  for  that  theory  of  so 
many  critics  which  assigns  to  this  period  Micah.     See  Vol.  I.,  p.  370. 

^  2  Kings  xxi.  10  ff. 

^  Whether  the  parenthetical  apostrophes  to  Jehovah  as  Maker  of 
the  heavens,  their  hosts  and  all  the  powers  of  nature  (Amos  iv.  13, 
V.  8,  9,  ix.  5,  6),  are  also  to  be  attributed  to  Manasseh's  reign  is 
more  doubtful.     Yet   the   following  facts  are  to  be  observed  :  that 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE  CHRIST  9 

In  times  of  persecution  the  documents  of  the  suffering 
faith  have  ever  been  reverenced  and  guarded  with 
especial  zeal.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  prophets, 
driven  from  public  life,  gave  themselves  to  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  national  scriptures  ;  and  some  critics  date 
from  Manasseh's  reign  the  weaving  of  the  two  earliest 
documents  of  the  Pentateuch  into  one  continuous  book 
of  history/  The  Book  of  Deuteronomy  forms  a  problem 
by  itself.  The  legislation  which  composes  the  bulk 
of  it  ^  appears  to  have  been  found  among  the  Temple 

these  passages  are  also  (though  to  a  less  degree  than  v.  26  f.) 
parenthetic;  that  their  language  seems  of  a  later  cast  than  that  of  the 
time  of  Amos  (see  Vol.  I.,  pp.  204,  205  :  though  here  evidence  is 
adduced  to  show  that  the  late  features  are  probably  post-exilic) ;  and 
that  Jehovah  is  expressly  named  as  the  Maker  of  certain  of  the 
stars.  Similarly  when  Mohammed  seeks  to  condemn  the  worship  of 
the  heavenly  bodies,  he  insists  that  God  is  their  Maker.  Koran,  Sur. 
41,  37 :  "  To  the  signs  of  His  Omnipotence  belong  night  and  day, 
sun  and  moon ;  but  do  not  pray  to  sun  or  moon,  for  God  hath 
created  them."  Sur.  53,  50 :  "  Because  He  is  the  Lord  of  Sirius." 
On  the  other  side  see  Driver's  Joel  and  Amos  (Cambridge  Bible  for 
Schools  Series),  1897,  pp.  118  f.,  189. 

How  deeply  Manasseh  had  planted  in  Israel  the  worship  of  the 
heavenly  host  may  be  seen  from  the  survival  of  the  latter  through 
all  the  reforms  of  Josiah  and  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  (Jer.  vii.  18, 
viii.,  xliv. ;  Ezek.  viii.     Cf.  Stade,  Gesch.  des  V.  Israel,  I.,  pp.  629  ff.). 

'  The  Jehovist  and  Elohist  into  the  closely  mortised  JE.  Stade 
indeed  assigns  to  the  period  of  Manasseh  Israel's  first  acquaintance 
with  the  Babylonian  cosmogonies  and  myths  which  led  to  that 
reconstruction  of  them  in  the  spirit  of  her  own  rehgion  which  we 
find  in  the  Jehovistic  portions  of  the  beginning  of  Genesis  {Gesch. 
des  V.  Isr.,  I.,  pp.  630  if.).  But  it  may  well  be  doubted  (i)  whether  the 
reign  of  Manasseh  affords  time  for  this  assimilation,  and  (2)  whether 
it  was  likely  that  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  theology  could  make 
so  deep  and  lasting  impression  upon  the  purer  faith  of  Israel  at  a 
time  when  the  latter  stood  in  such  sharp  hostility  to  all  foreign 
influences  and  was  so  bitterly  persecuted  by  the  parties  in  Israel 
who  had  succumbed  to  these  influences. 

^  Chaps,  v.-xxvi.,  xxviii. 


10  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

archives  at  the  end  of  our  period,  and  presented  to 
Josiah  as  an  old  and  forgotten  work.^  There  is  no 
reason  to  charge  with  fraud  those  who  made  the  pre- 
sentation by  affirming  that  they  really  invented  the 
book.  They  were  priests  of  Jerusalem,  but  the  book  is 
written  by  members  of  the  prophetic  party,  and  osten- 
sibly in  the  interests  of  the  priests  of  the  country.  It 
betrays  no  tremor  of  the  awful  persecutions  oi 
Manasseh's  reign  ;  it  does  not  hint  at  the  distinction, 
then  for  the  first  time  apparent,  between  a  false  and 
a  true  Israel.  But  it  does  draw  another  distinction, 
familiar  to  the  eighth  century,  between  the  true  and 
the  false  prophets.  The  political  and  spiritual  premisses 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  book  were  all  present  by  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  and  it  is  extremely 
improbable  that  his  reforms,  which  were  in  the  main 
those  of  Deuteronomy,  were  not  accompanied  by  some 
code,  or  by  some  appeal  to  the  fountain  of  all  law 
in  Israel. 

But  whether  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy  now  existed 
or  not,  there  were  those  in  the  nation  who  through  all 
the  dark  days  between  Hezekiah  and  Josiah  laid  up 
its  truth  in  their  hearts  and  were  ready  to  assist  the 
latter  monarch  in  his  public  enforcement  of  it. 

While  these  things  happened  within  Judah,  very 
great  events  were  taking  place  beyond  her  borders. 
Asarhaddon  of  Assyria  (68 1 — 668)  was  a  monarch 
of  long  purposes  and  thorough  plans.  Before  he 
invaded  Egypt,  he  spent  a  year  (675)  in  subduing  the 
restless  tribes  of  Northern  Arabia,  and  another  (674)  in 
conquering  the  peninsula  of  Sinai,  an  ancient  appanage 
of  Egypt.     Tyre  upon  her  island  baffled  his  assaults, 

^   621   B.C. 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE  CHRIST        ii 

but  the  rest  of  Palestine  remained  subject  to  him. 
He  received  his  reward  in  carrying  the  Assyrian  arms 
farther  into  Egypt  than  any  of  his  predecessors,  and 
about  670  took  Memphis  from  the  Ethiopian  Pharaoh 
Taharka.  Then  he  died.  Assurbanipal,  who  suc- 
ceeded, lost  Egypt  for  a  few  years,  but  about  665, 
with  the  help  of  his  tributaries  in  Palestine,  he  over- 
threw Taharka,  took  Thebes,  and  established  along 
the  Nile  a  series  of  vassal  states.  He  quelled  a  revolt 
there  in  662,  and  overthrew  Memphis  for  a  second 
time.  The  fall  of  the  Egyptian  capital  resounds 
through  the  rest  of  .the  century ;  we  shall  hear  its 
echoes  in  Nahum.  Tyre  fell  at  last  with  Arvad  in 
662.  But  the  Assyrian  empire  had  grown  too  vast 
for  human  hands  to  grasp,  and  in  652  a  general  revolt 
took  place  in  Egypt,  Arabia,  Palestine,  Elam,  Babylon 
and  Asia  Minor.  In  649  Assurbanipal  reduced  Elam 
and  Babylon  ;  and  by  two  further  campaigns  (647  and 
645)  Hauran,  Edom,  Ammon,  Moab,  Nabatea  and  all 
the  northern  Arabs.  On  his  return  from  these  he 
crossed  Western  Palestine  to  the  sea  and  punished 
Usu  and  Akko.  It  is  very  remarkable  that,  while 
Assurbanipal,  who  thus  fought  the  neighbours  of  Judah, 
makes  no  mention  of  her,  nor  numbers  Manasseh  among 
the  rebels  whom  he  chastised,  the  Book  of  Chronicles 
should  contain  the  statement  that  Jehovah  sent  upon 
Manasseh  the  captains  of  the  host  of  the  king  of  Assyria^ 
who  bound  him  with  fetters  and  carried  him  to  Babylon} 
What  grounds  the  Chronicler  had  for  such  a  statement 
are  quite  unknown  to  us.  He  introduces  Manasseh's 
captivity  as  the  consequence  of  idolatry,  and  asserts 
that  on  his  restoration  Manasseh  abolished  in  Judah 

'  2  Chron.  xxxiii.  1 1  ff. 


12  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

all  worship  save  that  of  Jehovah,  but  if  this  happened 
(and  the  Book  of  Kings  has  no  trace  of  it)  it  was 
without  result.  Amon,  son  of  Manasseh,  continued 
to  sacrifice  to  all  the  images  which  his  father  had 
introduced. 

2.  The  Early  Years  of  Josiah  (639 — 625)  : 
Jeremiah  and  Zephaniah. 

Amon  had  not  reigned  for  two  years  when  his 
servants  conspired  against  him^  and  he  was  slain  in  his 
own  house}  But  the  people  of  the  land  rose  against 
the  court,  slew  the  conspirators,  and  secured  the  throne 
for  Amon's  son,  Josiah,  a  child  of  eight.  It  is  difficult 
to  know  what  we  ought  to  understand  by  these  move- 
ments. Amon,  who  was  slain,  was  an  idolater;  the 
popular  party,  who  slew  his  slayers,  put  his  son  on 
the  throne,  and  that  son,  unlike  both  his  father  and 
grandfather,  bore  a  name  compounded  with  the  name 
of  Jehovah.  Was  Amon  then  slain  for  personal 
reasons  ?  Did  the  people,  in  their  rising,  have  a  zeal 
for  Jehovah?  Was  the  crisis  purely  poHtical,  but 
usurped  by  some  school  or  party  of  Jehovah  who  had 
been  gathering  strength  through  the  later  years  of 
Manasseh,  and  waiting  for  some  such  unsettlement  of 
affairs  as  now  occurred  ?  The  meagre  records  of  the 
Bible  give  us  no  help,  and  for  suggestions  towards  an 
answer  we  must  turn  to  the  wider  politics  of  the  time. 

Assurbanipal's  campaigns  of  647  and  645  were  the 
last  appearances  of  Assyria  in  Palestine.  He  had  not 
attempted  to  reconquer  Egypt,^  and  her  king,  Psamtik  I., 


'  2  Kings  xxi.  23. 

^  But  in  his  conquests  of  Hauran,  Northern  Arabia  and  the  eastern 
neighbours  of  Judah,  he  had  evidently  sought  to  imitate  the  poHcy  of 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE  CHRIST         13 

began  to  push  his  arms  northward.  Progress  must 
have  been  slow,  for  the  siege  of  Ashdod,  which  Psamtik 
probably  began  after  645,  is  said  to  have  occupied  him 
twenty-nine  years.  Still,  he  must  have  made  his  in- 
fluence to  be  felt  in  Palestine,  and  in  all  probability 
there  was  once  more,  as  in  the  days  of  Isaiah,  an 
Egyptian  party  in  Jerusalem.  As  the  power  of  Assyria 
receded  over  the  northern  horizon,  the  fascination  of  her 
idolatries,  which  Manasseh  had  established  in  Judah, 
must  have  waned.  The  priests  of  Jehovah's  house, 
jostled  by  their  pagan  rivals,  would  be  inclined  to  make 
common  cause  with  the  prophets  under  a  persecution 
which  both  had  suffered.  With  the  loosening  of  the 
Assyrian  yoke  the  national  spirit  would  revive,  and  it  is 
easy  to  imagine  prophets,  priests  and  people  working 
together  in  the  movement  which  placed  the  child  Josiah 
on  the  throne.  At  his  tender  age,  he  must  have  been 
wholly  in  the  care  of  the  women  of  the  royal  house ; 
and  among  these  the  influence  of  the  prophets  may 
have  found  adherents  more  readily  than  among  the 
counseflors  of  an  adult  prince.  Not  only  did  the  new 
monarch  carry  the  name  of  Jehovah  in  his  own ;  this 
was  the  case  also  with  his  mother's  father.-^  In  the 
revolt,  therefore,  which  raised  this  unconscious  child 
to  the  throne  and  in  the  circumstances  which  moulded 
his  character,  we  may  infer  that  there  already  existed 
the  germs  of  the  great  work  of  reform  which  his 
manhood  achieved. 

Asarhaddon  in  675  f.,  and  secure  firm  ground  in  Palestine  and  Arabia 
for  a  subsequent  attack  upon  Egypt.  That  this  never  came  shows 
more  than  anything  else  could  Assyria's  consciousness  of  growing 
weakness. 

'  The   name  of  Josiah 's   (•IH^K'N''')   mother   was  Jedidah   (iTin?) 
daughter  of  Adaiah  (n^j^)  of  Boskath  in  the  Shephelah  of  Judah. 


14  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

For  some  time  little  change  would  be  possible,  but 
from  the  first  facts  were  working  for  great  issues. 
The  Book  of  Kings,  which  places  the  destruction  of  the 
idols  after  the  discovery  of  the  law-book  in  the  eigh- 
teenth year  of  Josiah's  reign,  records  a  previous 
cleansing  and  restoration  of  the  house  of  Jehovah.^ 
This  points  to  the  growing  ascendency  of  the  prophetic 
party  during  the  first  fifteen  years  of  Josiah's  reign. 
Of  the  first  ten  years  we  know  nothing,  except  that  the 
prestige  of  Assyria  was  waning;  but  this  fact,  along 
with  the  preaching  of  the  prophets,  who  had  neither 
a  native  tyrant  nor  the  exigencies  of  a  foreign  alliance 
to  silence  them,  must  have  weaned  the  people  from  the 
worship  of  the  Assyrian  idols.  Unless  these  had  been 
discredited,  the  repair  of  Jehovah's  house  could  hardly 
have  been  attempted;  and  that  this  progressed  means 
that  part  of  Josiah's  destruction  of  the  heathen  images 
took  place  before  the  discovery  of  the  Book  of  the  Law, 
which  happened  in  consequence  of  the  cleansing  of  the 
Temple. 

But  just  as  under  the  good  Hezekiah  the  social 
condition  of  the  people,  and  especially  the  behaviour 
of  the  upper  classes,  continued  to  be  bad,  so  it  was 
again  in  the  early  years  of  Josiah.  There  was  a 
remnant  of  Baal'  in  the  land.  The  shrines  of  the  host 
of  heaven  might  have  been  swept  from  the  Temple,  but 
they  were  still  worshipped  from  the  housetops.^  Men 
swore  by  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  and  by  Moloch,  the 
King.  Some  turned  back  from  Jehovah ;  some,  grown 
up  in  idolatry,  had  not  yet  sought  Him.  Idolatry  may 
have  been  disestablished  from  the  national  sanctuary: 

'  2  Kings  xxii.,  xxiii. 

^  Zeph.  i.  4 :  the  LXX.  reads  names  of  Baal.    See  below,  p.  40,  n.  3. 

3  Ibid.,  5. 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE   CHRIST         15 

its  practices  still  lingered  (how  intelligibly  to  us !)  in 
social  and  commercial  life.  Foreign  fashions  were 
affected  by  the  court  and  nobility  ;  trade,  as  always, 
was  combined  with  the  acknowledgment  of  foreign 
gods.-^  Moreover,  the  rich  were  fraudulent  and  cruel. 
The  ministers  of  justice,  and  the  great  in  the  land, 
ravened  among  the  poor.  Jerusalem  was  full  of  oppres- 
sion. These  were  the  same  disorders  as  Amos  and 
Hosea  exposed  in  Northern  Israel,  and  as  Micah 
exposed  in  Jerusalem.  But  one  new  trait  of  evil  was 
added.  In  the  eighth  century,  with  all  their  ignorance 
of  Jehovah's  true  character,  men  had  yet  believed  in 
Him,  gloried  in  His  energy,  and  expected  Him  to  act — 
were  it  only  in  accordance  with  their  low  ideals.  They 
had  been  alive  and  bubbling  with  religion.  But  now 
they  had  thickened  on  their  lees.  They  had  grown 
sceptical,  dull,  indifferent ;  they  said  in  their  hearts, 
Jehovah  will  not  do  good,  neither  will  He  do  evil ! 

Now,  just  as  in  the  eighth  century  there  had  risen, 
contemporaneous  with  Israel's  social  corruption,  a  cloud 
in  the  north,  black  and  pregnant  with  destruction, 
so  was  it  once  more.  But  the  cloud  was  not  Assyria. 
From  the  hidden  world  beyond  her,  from  the  regions 
over  Caucasus,  vast,  nameless  hordes  of  men  arose,  and, 
sweeping  past  her  unchecked,  poured  upon  Palestine. 
This  was  the  great  Scythian  invasion  recorded  by 
Herodotus.^  We  have  almost  no  other  report  than  his 
few  paragraphs,  but  we  can  realise  the  event  from  our 
knowledge  of  the  Mongol  and  Tartar  invasions  which 
in  later  centuries  pursued  the  same  path  southwards. 
Living  in  the  saddle,  and  (it  would  seem)  with  no 
infantry  nor  chariots  to  delay  them,  these   Centaurs 

>  Ibid.,  8-12,  2  i_  102  ff. 


1 6  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

swept  on  with  a  speed  of  invasion  hitherto  unknown. 
In  630  they  had  crossed  the  Caucasus,  by  626  they 
were  on  the  borders  of  Egypt.  Psamtik  I.  succeeded 
in  purchasing  their  retreat/  and  they  swept  back  again 
as  swiftly  as  they  came.  They  must  have  followed  the 
old  Assyrian  war-paths  of  the  eighth  century,  and,  with- 
out foot-soldiers,  had  probably  kept  even  more  closely 
to  the  plains.  In  Palestine  their  way  would  lie,  hke 
Assyria's,  across  Hauran,  through  the  plain  of  Esdraelon, 
and  down  the  Philistine  coast,  and  in  fact  it  is  only  on 
this  line  that  there  exists  any  possible  trace  of  them.^ 
But  they  shook  the  whole  of  Palestine  into  consternation. 
Though  Judah  among  her  hills  escaped  them,  as  she 
escaped  the  earlier  campaigns  of  Assyria,  they  showed 
her  the  penal  resources  of  her  offended  God.  Once 
again  the  dark,  sacred  North  was  seen  to  be  full  of 
the  possibiHties  of  doom. 

Behold,  therefore,  exactly  the  two  conditions,  ethical 
and  political,  which,  as  we  saw,  called  forth  the  sudden 
prophets  of  the  eighth  century,  and  made  them  so  sure 
of  their  message  of  judgment :  on  the  one  side  Judah, 
her  sins  calling  aloud  for  punishment ;  on  the  other 
side  the  forces  of  punishment  swiftly  drawing  on.  It 
was  precisely  at  this  juncture  that  prophecy  again  arose, 
and  as  Amos,  Hosea,  Micah  and  Isaiah  appeared  in 
the  end  of  the  eighth  century,  Zephaniah,  Habakkuk, 
Nahum  and  Jeremiah  appeared  in  the  end  of  the 
seventh.  The  coincidence  is  exact,  and  a  remarkable 
confirmation  of  the  truth  which  we  deduced  from  the 
experience  of  Amos,  that  the  assurance  of  the  prophet 

1  Herod.,  I.  105. 

2  The  new  name  of  Bethshan  in  the  mouth  of  Esdraelon,  viz. 
Scythopolis,  is  said  to  be  derived  from  them  (but  see  Hist.  Geog. 
of  the  Holy  Land,  pp.  363  f.) ;  they  conquered  Askalon  (Herod.,  1. 105). 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE  CHRIST         17 

in  Israel  arose  from  the  coincidence  of  his  conscience 
with  his  political  observation.  The  justice  of  Jehovah 
demands  His  people's  chastisement,  but  see — the  forces 
of  chastisement  are  already  upon  the  horizon.  Zeph- 
aniah  uses  the  same  phrase  as  Amos  :  the  Day  of 
Fehovahf  he  says,  is  drawing  near. 

We  are  now  in  touch  with  Zephaniah,  the  first  of 
our  prophets,  but,  before  listening  to  him,  it  will  be 
well  to  complete  our  survey  of  those  remaining  years 
of  the  century  in  which  he  and  his  immediate  successors 
laboured. 

3.  The  Rest  of  the  Century  (625 — 586)  :  the 
Fall  of  Niniveh  ;  Nahum  and  Habakkuk. 

Although  the  Scythians  had  vanished  from  the 
horizon  of  Palestine  and  the  Assyrians  came  over  it 
no  more,  the  fateful  North  still  lowered  dark  and 
turbulent.  Yet  the  keen  eyes  of  the  watchmen  in 
Palestine  perceived  that,  for  a  time  at  least,  the  storm 
must  break  where  it  had  gathered.  It  is  upon  Niniveh, 
not  upon  Jerusalem,  that  the  prophetic  passion  of 
Nahum  and  Habakkuk  is  concentrated ;  the  new  day 
of  the  Lord  is  filled  with  the  fate,  not  of  Israel,  but  of 
Assyria. 

For  nearly  two  centuries  Niniveh  had  been  the 
capital  and  cynosure  of  Western  Asia ;  for  more  than 
one  she  had  set  the  fashions,  the  art,  and  even,  to  some 
extent,  the  religion  of  all  the  Semitic  nations.  Of  late 
years,  too,  she  had  drawn  to  herself  the  world's  trade. 
Great  roads  from  Egypt,  from  Persia  and  from  the 
iEgean  converged  upon  her,  till  like  Imperial  Rome 
she  was  filled  with  a  vast  motley  of  peoples,  and 
men  went  forth  from   her   to   the  ends  of  the  earth. 

VOL.  n.  2 


1 8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Under  Assurbanipal  travel  and  research  had  increased, 
and  the  city  acquired  renown  as  the  centre  of  the 
world's  wisdom.  Thus  her  size  and  glory,  with  all 
her  details  of  rampart  and  tower,  street,  palace  and 
temple,  grew  everywhere  familiar.  But  the  peoples 
gazed  at  her  as  those  who  had  been  bled  to  build  her. 
The  most  remote  of  them  had  seen  face  to  face  on 
their  own  fields,  trampling,  stripping,  burning,  the 
warriors  who  manned  her  walls.  She  had  dashed 
their  little  ones  against  the  rocks.  Their  kings  had 
been  dragged  from  them  and  hung  in  cages  about  her 
gates.  Their  gods  had  lined  the  temples  of  her  gods. 
Year  by  year  they  sent  her  their  heavy  tribute,  and  the 
bearers  came  back  with  fresh  tales  of  her  rapacious 
insolence.  So  she  stood,  bitterly  clear  to  all  men, 
in  her  glory  and  her  cruelty  !  Their  hate  haunted  her 
every  pinnacle ;  and  at  last,  when  about  625  the  news 
came  that  her  frontier  fortresses  had  fallen  and  the  great 
city  herself  was  being  besieged,  we  can  understand 
how  her  victims  gloated  on  each  possible  stage  of  her 
fall,  and  saw  her  yield  to  one  after  another  of  the 
cruelties  of  battle,  siege  and  storm,  which  for  two 
hundred  years  she  had  inflicted  on  themselves.  To 
such  a  vision  the  prophet  Nahum  gives  voice,  not  on 
behalf  of  Israel  alone,  but  of  all  the  nations  whom 
Niniveh  had  crushed. 

It  was  obvious  that  the  vengeance  which  Western 
Asia  thus  hailed  upon  Assyria  must  come  from  one 
or  other  of  two  groups  of  peoples,  standing  respect- 
ively to  the  north  and  to  the  south  of  her. 

To  the  north,  or  north-east,  between  Mesopotamia 
and  the  Caspian,  there  were  gathered  a  congeries 
of  restless  tribes  known  to  the  Assyrians  as  the 
Madai  or  Matai,  the  Medes.     They  are  mentioned  first 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE   CHRIST         19 

by  Shalmaneser  II.  in  840,  and  few  of  his  successors 
do  not  record  campaigns  against  them.  The  earhest 
notice  of  them  in  the  Old  Testament  is  in  con- 
nection with  the  captives  of  Samaria,  some  of  whom 
in  720  were  settled  among  them.-*  These  Medes  were 
probably  of  Turanian  stock,  but  by  the  end  of  the 
eighth  century,  if  we  are  to  judge  from  the  names  of 
some  of  their  chiefs,^  their  most  easterly  tribes  had 
already  fallen  under  Aryan  influence,  spreading  west- 
ward from  Persia.^  So  led,  they  became  united  and 
formidable  to  Assyria.  Herodotus  relates  that  their 
King  Phraortes,  or '  Fravartis,  actually  attempted  the 
siege  of  Niniveh,  probably  on  the  death  of  Assur- 
banipal  in  625,  but  was  slain.*  His  son  Kyaxares, 
Kastarit  or  Uvakshathra,  was  forced  by  a  Scythian 
invasion  of  his  own  country  to  withdraw  his  troops 
from  Assyria ;  but  having  either  bought  off  or  assimi- 
lated the  Scythian  invaders,  he  returned  in  608,  with 
forces  sufficient  to  overthrow  the  northern  Assyrian 
fortresses  and  to  invest  Niniveh  herself. 

The  other  and  southern  group  of  peoples  which 
threatened  Assyria  were  Semitic.  At  their  head  were 
the  Kasdim   or   Chaldeans.^     This   name   appears  for 

*  2  Kings  xvii.  6  :  and  in  the  cities  (LXX.  mountains)  of  the  Medes, 
The  Heb.  is  HD,  Madai. 

-  Mentioned  by  Sargon. 

*  Sayce,  Empires  of  the  East,  239  :  cf.  McCurdy,  §  823  f. 

*  Herod.,  I.  103. 

5  Heb.  Kasdim,  DH^S ;  LXX.  XaXbaioi.',  Assyr.  Kaldaa,  Kaldu 
The  Hebrew  form  with  s  is  regarded  by  many  authorities  as  the 
original,  from  the  Assyrian  root  kashadu,  to  conquer,  and  the  Assyrian 
form  with  /  to  have  arisen  by  the  common  change  of  sh  through  r 
into  /.  The  form  with  s  does  not  occur,  however,  in  Assyrian,  which 
also  possesses  the  root  kaladu,  with  the  same  meaning  as  kashadu. 
See  Mr.  Pinches'  articles  on  Chaldea  and  the  Chaldeans  in  the  new 
edition  of  Vol.  I.  of  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary. 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


the  first  time  in  the  Assyrian  annals  a  little  earlier  than 
that  of  the  Medes/  and  from  the  middle  of  the  ninth 
century  onwards  the  people  designated  by  it  frequently 
engage  the  Assyrian  arms.  They  were,  to  begin  with, 
a  few  half-savage  tribes  to  the  south  of  Babylon,  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  Persian  Gulf;  but  they  proved 
their  vigour  by  the  repeated  lordship  of  all  Babylonia 
and  by  inveterate  rebellion  against  the  monarchs  of 
Niniveh.  Before  the  end  of  the  seventh  century  we  find 
their  names  used  by  the  prophets  for  the  Babylonians 
as  a  whole.  Assurbanipal,  who  was  a  patron  of 
Babylonian  culture,  kept  the  country  quiet  during  the 
last  years  of  his  reign,  but  his  son  Asshur-itil-ilani, 
upon  his  accession  in  625,  had  to  grant  the  viceroyalty 
to  Nabopolassar  the  Chaldean  with  a  considerable 
degree  of  independence.  Asshur-itil-ilani  was  suc- 
ceeded in  a  few  years  ^  by  Sinsuriskin,  the  Sarakos  of 
the  Greeks,  who  preserved  at  least  a  nominal  sove- 
reignty over  Babylon,^  but  Nabopolassar  must  already 
have  cherished  ambitions  of  succeeding  the  Assyrian 
in  the  empire  of  the  world.  He  enjoyed  sufficient 
freedom  to  organise  his  forces  to  that  end. 

These  were  the  two  powers  which  from  north  and 
south  watched  with  impatience  the  decay  of  Assyria. 
That  they  made  no  attempt  upon  her  between  625  and 
608  was  probably  due  to  several  causes  :  their  jealousy 
of  each  other,  the  Medes'  trouble  with  the  Scythians, 
Nabopolassar's  genius  for  waiting  till  his  forces  were 

'  About  880  B.C.  in  the  annals  of  Assurnatsirpal.  See  Chrono- 
logical Table  to  Vol.  I. 

^  No  inscriptions  of  Asshur-itil-ilani  have  been  found  later  than 
the  first  two  years  of  his  reign. 

^  Billerbeck-Jeremias,  "  Der  Untergang  Niniveh's,"  in  Delitzsch 
and  Haupt's  Bettrage  sur  Assyriologie,  III.,  p.    113. 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE  CHRIST        21 

ready,  and  above  all  the  still  considerable  vigour  of  the 
Assyrian  himself.  The  Lion,  though  old,^  was  not 
broken.  His  power  may  have  relaxed  in  the  distant 
provinces  of  his  empire,  though,  if  Budde  be  right 
about  the  date  of  Habakkuk,''^  the  peoples  of  Syria  still 
groaned  under  the  thought  of  it ;  but  his  own  land — 
his  lair,  as  the  prophets  call  it — was  still  terrible.  It 
is  true  that,  as  Nahum  perceives,  the  capital  was  no 
longer  native  and  patriotic  as  it  had  been ;  the  trade 
fostered  by  Assurbanipal  had  filled  Niniveh  with  a 
vast  and  mercenary  population,  ready  to  break  and 
disperse  at  the  first  breach  in  her  walls.  Yet  Assyria 
proper  was  covered  with  fortresses,  and  the  tradition 
had  long  fastened  upon  the  peoples  that  Niniveh  was 
impregnable.  Hence  the  tension  of  those  years.  The 
peoples  of  Western  Asia  looked  eagerly  for  their  revenge; 
but  the  two  powers  which  alone  could  accomplish  this 
stood  waiting — afraid  of  each  other  perhaps,  but  more 
afraid  of  the  object  of  their  common  ambition. 

It  is  said  that  Kyaxares  and  Nabopolassar  at  last 
came  to  an  agreement ;  ^  but  more  probably  the  crisis 
was  hastened  by  the  appearance  of  another  claimant 
for  the  coveted  spoil.  In  608  Pharaoh  Necho  went  up 
against  the  king  of  Assyria  towards  the  river  Euphrates} 
This  Egyptian  advance   may  have  forced  the  hand  of 

'  Nahum  ii. 

^  See  below,  p.  120. 

3  Abydenus  (apud  Euseb.,  Chron.,  I.  9)  reports  a  marriage 
between  Nebuchadrezzar,  Nabopolassar's  son,  and  the  daughter  of 
the  Median  king. 

•  2  Kings  xxiii,  29.  The  history  is  here  very  obscure.  Necho, 
met  at  Megiddo  by  Josiah,  and  having  slain  him,  appears  to  have 
spent  a  year  or  two  in  subjugating,  and  arranging  for  the  government 
of,  Syria  (ibid.,  verses  33-35),  and  only  reached  the  Euphrates  in  605, 
when  Nebuchadrezzar  defeated  him. 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


Kyaxares,  who  appears  to  have  begun  his  investment 
of  Niniveh  a  little  after  Necho  defeated  Josiah  at 
Megiddo.^  The  siege  is  said  to  have  lasted  two  years. 
Whether  this  included  the  delays  necessary  for  the 
reduction  of  fortresses  upon  the  great  roads  of  approach 
to  the  Assyrian  capital  we  do  not  know ;  but  Niniveh's 
own  position,  fortifications  and  resources  may  well 
account  for  the  whole  of  the  time.  Colonel  Billerbeck, 
a  military  expert,  has  suggested^  that  the  Medes  found 
it  possible  to  invest  the  city  only  upon  the  northern 
and  eastern  sides.  Down  the  west  flows  the  Tigris, 
and  across  this  the  besieged  may  have  been  able  to 
bring  in  supplies  and  reinforcements  from  the  fertile 
country  beyond.  Herodotus  affirms  that  the  Medes 
effected  the  capture  of  Niniveh  by  themselves,^  and 
for  this  some  recent  evidence  has  been  found,*  so  that 
another  tradition  that  the  Chaldeans  were  also  actively 

'  The  reverse  view  is  taken  by  Wellhausen,  who  says  {Israel  u. 
Ji'td.  Gesch.,  pp.  97  f.)  :  "  Der  Pharaoh  scheint  ausgezogen  zu  sein  um 
sich  seinen  Teil  an  der  Erbschaft  Ninives  vorwegzunehmen,  wahrend 
die  Meder  und  Chaldaer  die  Stadt  belagerten." 

^  See  above,  p.  20,  n.  3. 

3  I.  106. 

*  A  stele  of  Nabonidus  discovered  at  Hilleh  and  now  in  the  museum 
at  Constantinople  relates  that  in  his  third  year,  553,  the  king  restored 
at  Harran  the  temple  of  Sin,  the  moon-god,  which  the  Medes  had 
destroyed  fifty-four  years  before,  i.e.  607.  Whether  the  Medes  did 
this  before,  during  or  after  the  siege  of  Niniveh  is  uncertain,  but  the 
approximate  dateof  the  siege,  608— 606,  is  thus  marvellously  confirmed. 
The  stele  affirms  that  the  Medes  alone  took  Niniveh,  but  that  they 
were  called  in  by  Marduk,  the  Babylonian  god,  to  assist  Nabopolassar 
and  avenge  the  deportation  of  his  image  by  Sennacherib  to  Niniveh. 
Messerschmidt  {Mittheilungen  der  Vorderasiatischen  Gesellschaft,  I. 
1896)  argues  that  the  Medes  were  summoned  by  the  Babylonians 
while  the  latter  were  being  sore  pressed  by  the  Assyrians.  Winckler 
had  already  {Untersiich.,  pp.  124  ff.,  1889)  urged  that  the  Babylonians 
would  refrain  from  taking  an  active  part  in  the  overthrow  of  Niniveh,  in 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE   CHRIST        23 

engaged/  which  has  nothing  to  support  it,  may  be 
regarded  as  false.  Nabopolassar  may  still  have  been 
in  name  an  Assyrian  viceroy;  yet,  as  Colonel  Billerbeck 
points  out,  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  make  Kyaxares' 
victory  possible  by  holding  the  southern  roads  to 
Niniveh,  detaching  other  viceroys  of  her  provinces  and 
so  shutting  her  up  to  her  own  resources.  But  among 
other  reasons  which  kept  him  away  from  the  siege 
may  have  been  the  necessity  of  guarding  against 
Egyptian  designs  on  the  moribund  empire.  Pharaoh 
Necho,  as  we  know,  was  making  for  the  Euphrates  as 
early  as  608.  Now  if  Nabopolassar  and  Kyaxares  had 
arranged  to  divide  Assyria  between  them,  then  it  is 
likely  that  they  agreed  also  to  share  the  work  of 
making  their  inheritance  sure,  so  that  while  Kyaxares 
overthrew  Niniveh,  Nabopolassar,  or  rather  his  son 
Nebuchadrezzar,^  waited  for  and  overthrew  Pharaoh  by 
Carchemish  on  the  Euphrates.  Consequently  Assyria 
was  divided  between  the  Medes  and  the  Chaldeans  ; 
the  latter  as  her  heirs  in  the  south  took  over  her 
title  to  Syria  and  Palestine. 

The  two  prophets  with  whom  we  have  to  deal  at  this 
time   are  almost   entirely  engrossed   with   the  fall   of 


fear  of  incurring  the  guilt  of  sacrilege.  Neither  Messerschmidt's  paper, 
nor  Scheil's  (who  describes  the  stele  in  the  Recueil  des  Travatix, 
XVIII.  1896),  being  accessible  to  me,  I  have  written  this  note  on  the 
information  supplied  by  Rev.  C.  H.  W.  Johns,  of  Cambridge,  in  the 
Expository  Times,  1896,  and  by  Prof.  A.  B.  Davidson  in  App.  I.  to 
Nah.^  Hub.  and  Zeph. 

'  Berosus  and  Abydenus  in  Eusebius. 

-  This  spelling  (Jer,  xlix.  28)  is  nearer  the  original  than  the  alterna- 
tive Hebrew  Nebuchadnezzar.  But  the  LXX,  liia^ovxodopdcrop,  and 
the  'Na^ovKo8p6aopos  of  Abydenus  and  Megasthenes  and  Na/3o/co5/)6(ropos 
of  Strabo,  have  preserved  the  more  correct  vocalisation;  for  the 
original  is  Nabu-kudurri-usur  =  Nebo,  defend  the  crown ! 


24  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Assyria.  Nahum  exults  in  the  destruction  of  Niniveh ; 
Habakkuk  sees  in  the  Chaldeans  nothing  but  the 
avengers  of  the  peoples  whom  Assyria  ^  had  oppressed. 
For  both  these  events  are  the  close  of  an  epoch  :  neither 
prophet  looks  beyond  this.  Nahum  (not  on  behalf  of 
Israel  alone)  gives  expression  to  the  epoch's  long 
thirst  for  vengeance  on  the  tyrant;  Habakkuk  (if 
Budde's  reading  of  him  be  right  ^ )  states  the  problems 
Ynih.  which  its  victorious  cruelties  had  filled  the  pious 
mind — states  the  problem  and  beholds  the  solution  in 
the  Chaldeans.  And,  surely,  the  vengeance  was  so  just 
and  so  ample,  the  solution  so  drastic  and  for  the  time 
complete,  that  we  can  well  understand  how  two  prophets 
should  exhaust  their  office  in  describing  such  things, 
and  feel  no  motive  to  look  either  deep  into  the  moral 
condition  of  Israel,  or  far  out  into  the  future  which  God 
was  preparing  for  His  people.  It  might,  of  course,  be 
said  that  the  prophets'  silence  on  the  latter  subjects 
was  due  to  their  positions  immediately  after  the  great 
Reform  of  621,  when  the  nation,  having  been  roused 
to  an  honest  striving  after  righteousness,  did  not  require 
prophetic  rebuke,  and  w^hen  the  success  of  so  godly  a 
prince  as  Josiah  left  no  spiritual  ambitions  unsatisfied. 
But  this  (even  if  the  dates  of  the  two  prophets  were 
certain)  is  hardly  probable  ;  and  the  other  explanation 
is  sufficient.  Who  can  doubt  this  who  has  realised 
the  long  epoch  which  then  reached  a  crisis,  or 
has  been  thrilled  by  the  crash  of  the  crisis  itself? 
The  fall  of  Niniveh  was  deafening  enough  to  drown 
for  the  moment,  as  it  does  in  Nahum,  even  a  Hebrew's 
clamant  conscience  of  his  country's  sin.  The  problems, 
which  the  long  success  of  Assyrian  cruelty  had  started, 

'  But  see  below,  pp.  123  f.  -  Below,  pp.  121  flf. 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE  CHRIST        25 

were  old  and  formidable  enough  to  demand  statement 
and  answer  before  either  the  hopes  or  the  responsibili- 
ties of  the  future  could  find  voice.  The  past  also 
requires  its  prophets.  Feeling  has  to  be  satisfied,  and 
experience  balanced,  before  the  heart  is  willing  to  turn 
the  leaf  and  read  the  page  of  the  future. 

Yet,  through  all  this  time  of  Assyria's  decline,  Israel 
had  her  own  sins,  fears  and  convictions  of  judgment 
to  come.  The  disappearance  of  the  Scythians  did  not 
leave  Zephaniah's  predictions  of  doom  without  means 
of  fulfilment;  nor  did  the  great  Reform  of  621  re- 
move the  necessity'  of  that  doom.  In  the  deepest 
hearts  the  assurance  that  Israel  must  be  punished  was 
by  these  things  only  confirmed.  The  prophetess 
Huldah,  the  first  to  speak  in  the  name  of  the  Lord 
after  the  Book  of  the  Law  was  discovered,  emphasised 
not  the  reforms  which  it  enjoined  but  the  judgments 
which  it  predicted.  Josiah's  righteousness  could  at 
most  ensure  for  himself  a  peaceful  death  :  his  people 
were  incorrigible  and  doomed.^  The  reforms  indeed 
proceeded,  there  was  public  and  widespread  penitence, 
idolatry  was  abolished.  But  those  were  only  shallow 
pedants  who  put  their  trust  in  the  possession  of  a 
revealed  Law  and  purged  Temple,^  and  who  boasted 
that  therefore  Israel  was  secure.  Jeremiah  repeated  the 
gloomy  forecasts  of  Zephaniah  and  Huldah,  and  even 
before  the  wickedness  of  Jehoiakim's  reign  proved  the 
obduracy  of  Israel's  heart,  he  affirmed  the  imminence  of 


^  2  Kings  xxii.  11-20.  The  genuineness  of  this  passage  is  proved 
(as  against  Stade,  Gesch.  des  Volkes  Israel,  I.)  by  the  promise  which 
it  gives  to  Josiah  of  a  peaceful  death.  Had  it  been  written  after 
the  battle  of  Megiddo,  in  which  Josiah  was  slain,  it  could  not  have 
contained  such  a  promise. 

^  Jer.  vii.  4,  viii.  8. 


26  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  evil  out  of  the  north  and  the  great  destruction}  Of 
our  three  prophets  in  this  period  Zephaniah,  though  the 
earHest,  had  therefore  the  last  word.  While  Nahum 
and  Habakkuk  were  almost  wholly  absorbed  with  the 
epoch  that  is  closing,  he  had  a  vision  of  the  future.  Is 
this  why  his  book  has  been  ranged  among  our  Twelve 
after  those  of  his  slightly  later  contemporaries  ? 

The  precise  course  of  events  in  Israel  was  this — 
and  we  must  follow  them,  for  among  them  we  have 
to  seek  exact  dates  for  Nahum  and  Habakkuk.  In 
621  the  Book  of  the  Law  was  discovered,  and  Josiah 
applied  himself  with  thoroughness  to  the  reforms  which 
he  had  already  begun.  For  thirteen  years  he  seems 
to  have  had  peace  to  carry  them  through.  The 
heathen  altars  were  thrown  down,  with  all  the  high 
places  in  Judah  and  even  some  in  Samaria.  Images 
were  abolished.  The  heathen  priests  were  exter- 
minated, with  the  wizards  and  soothsayers.  The 
Levites,  except  the  sons  of  Zadok,  who  alone  were 
allowed  to  minister  in  the  Temple,  henceforth  the  only 
place  of  sacrifice,  were  debarred  from  priestly  duties. 
A  great  passover  was  celebrated.^  The  king  did 
justice  and  was  the  friend  of  the  poor ;  ^  it  went  well 
with  him  and  the  people.^  He  extended  his  influence 
into  Samaria ;  it  is  probable  that  he  ventured  to  carry 
out  the  injunctions  of  Deuteronomy  with  regard  to  the 
neighbouring  heathen.'^     Literature  flourished  :  though 


'    VI.  I. 

^  All  these  reforms  in  2  Kings  xxiii. 

^  Jer.  xxii.  15  f. 

*  Ibid.,  ver.  16. 

^  We  have  no  record  of  this,  but  a  prince  who  so  rashly  flung 
himself  in  the  way  of  Egypt  would  not  hesitate  to  claim  authority 
over  Moab  and  Ammon. 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE   CHRIST        27 

critics  have  not  combined  upon  the  works  to  be 
assigned  to  this  reign,  they  agree  that  a  great  many 
were  produced  in  it.  Wealth  must  have  accumulated  : 
certainly  the  nation  entered  the  troubles  of  the  next 
reign  with  an  arrogant  confidence  that  argues  under 
Josiah  the  rapid  growth  of  prosperity  in  every  direction. 
Then  of  a  sudden  came  the  fatal  year  of  608.  Pharaoh 
Necho  appeared  in  Palestine^  with  an  army  destined 
for  the  Euphrates,  and  Josiah  went  up  to  meet  him 
at  Megiddo.  His  tactics  are  plain — it  is  the  first 
strait  on  the  land-road  from  Egypt  to  the  Euphrates — 
but  his  motives  are  obscure.  Assyria  can  hardly 
have  been  strong  enough  at  this  time  to  fling  him  as 
her  vassal  across  the  path  of  her  ancient  foe.  He 
must  have  gone  of  himself.  "  His  dream  was  pro- 
bably to  bring  back  the  scattered  remains  of  the 
northern  kingdom  to  a  pure  worship,  and  to  unite  the 
whole  people  of  Israel  under  the  sceptre  of  the  house 
of  David  ;  and  he  was  not  inclined  to  allow  Egypt  to 
cross  his  aspirations,  and  rob  him  of  the  inheritance 
which  was  falling  to  him  from  the  dead  hand  of 
Assyria."  ^ 

Josiah  fell,  and  with  him  not  only  the  liberty  of  his 

*  2  Kings  xxiii.  24.  The  question  whether  Necho  came  by  land 
from  Egypt  or  brought  his  troops  in  his  fleet  to  Acre  is  hardly 
answered  by  the  fact  that  Josiah  went  to  Megiddo  to  meet  him. 
But  Megiddo  on  the  whole  tells  more  for  the  land  than  the  sea.  It 
is  not  on  the  path  from  Acre  to  the  Euphrates ;  it  is  the  key  of  the 
land-road  from  Egypt  to  the  Euphrates.  Josiah  could  have  no  hope 
of  stopping  Pharaoh  on  the  broad  levels  of  Philistia  ;  but  at  Megiddo 
there  was  a  narrow  pass,  and  the  only  chance  of  arresting  so  large  an 
army  as  it  moved  in  detachments.  Josiah's  tactics  were  therefore 
analogous  to  those  of  Saul,  who  also  left  his  own  territory  and 
marched  north  to  Esdraelon,  to  meet  his  foe — and  death. 

^  A.  B.  Davidson,  The  Exile  and  the  Restoration,  p.  8  (Bible 
Class  Primers,  ed.  by  Salmond ;  Edin.,  T.  &  T.  Clark,  1897). 


28  THE   TWELVE   PROPHETS 


people,  but  the  chief  support  of  their  faith.  That 
the  righteous  king  was  cut  down  in  the  midst  of  his 
days  and  in  defence  of  the  Holy  Land — what  could 
this  mean  ?  Was  it,  then,  vain  to  serve  the  Lord  ? 
Could  He  not  defend  His  own?  With  some  the 
disaster  was  a  cause  of  sore  complaint,  and  with 
others,  perhaps,  of  open  desertion  from  Jehovah. 

But  the  extraordinary  thing  is,  how  Httle  effect 
Josiah's  death  seems  to  have  had  upon  the  people's 
self-confidence  at  large,  or  upon  their  adherence  to 
Jehovah.  They  immediately  placed  Josiah's  second 
son  on  the  throne ;  but  Necho,  having  got  him  by  some 
means  to  his  camp  at  Riblah  between  the  Lebanons, 
sent  him  in  fetters  to  Egypt,  where  he  died,  and 
established  in  his  place  Eliakim,  his  elder  brother.  On 
his  accession  Eliakim  changed  his  name  to  Jehoiakim, 
a  proof  that  Jehovah  was  still  regarded  as  the  sufficient 
patron  of  Israel  ;  and  the  same  blind  belief  that,  for 
the  sake  of  His  Temple  and  of  His  Law,  Jehovah 
would  keep  His  people  in  security,  continued  to  per- 
severe in  spite  of  Megiddo.  It  was  a  most  immoral 
ease,  and  filled  with  injustice.  Necho  subjected  the 
land  to  a  fine.  This  was  not  heavy,  but  Jehoiakim, 
instead  of  paying  it  out  of  the  royal  treasures,  exacted 
it  from  the  people  of  the  land^  and  then  employed  the 
peace  which  it  purchased  in  erecting  a  costly  palace 
for  himself  by  the  forced  labour  of  his  subjects.^ 
He  was  covetous,  unjust  and  violently  cruel.  Like 
prince  like  people  :  social  oppression  prevailed,  and 
there  was  a  recrudescence  of  the  idolatries  of  Manasseh's 
time,^  especially  (it  may  be  inferred)  after  Necho's 
defeat  at  Carchemish  in  605.      That   all   this   should 

'   2  Kings  xxiii.  33-35.  '  Jer.  xxii.   13-15.  ^  Jer.  xi. 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE  CHRIST        29 

exist  along  with  a  fanatic  trust  in  Jehovah  need  not 
surprise  us  who  remember  the  very  similar  state  of  the 
public  mind  in  North  Israel  under  Amos  and  Hosea. 
Jeremiah  attacked  it  as  they  had  done.  Though 
Assyria  was  fallen,  and  Egypt  was  promising  protection, 
Jeremiah  predicted  destruction  from  the  north  on  Egypt 
and  Israel  alike.  When  at  last  the  Egyptian  defeat  at 
Carchemish  stirred  some  vague  fears  in  the  people's 
hearts,  Jeremiah's  conviction  broke  out  into  clear  flame. 
For  three-and-twenty  years  he  had  brought  God's  word 
in  vain  to  his  countrymen.  Now  God  Himself  would 
act:  Nebuchadrezzar  was  but  His  servant  to  lead 
Israel  into  captivity.^ 

The  same  year,  605  or  604,  Jeremiah  wrote  all  these 
things  in  a  volume ;  ^  and  a  few  months  later,  at  a 
national  fast,  occasioned  perhaps  by  the  fear  of  the 
Chaldeans,  Baruch,  his  secretary,  read  them  in  the 
house  of  the  Lord,  in  the  ears  of  all  the  people. 
The  king  was  informed,  the  roll  was  brought  to  him, 
and  as  it  was  read,  with  his  own  hands  he  cut  it  up  and 
burned  it,  three  or  four  columns  at  a  time.  Jeremiah 
answered  by  calling  down  on  Jehoiakim  an  ignominious 
death,  and  repeated  the  doom  already  uttered  on  the 
land.  Another  prophet,  Urijah,  had  recently  been 
executed  for  the  same  truth ;  but  Jeremiah  and  Baruch 
escaped  into  hiding. 

This  was  probably  in  603,  and  for  a  little  time 
Jehoiakim  and  the  populace  were  restored  to  their  false 
security  by  the  delay  of  the  Chaldeans  to  come  south. 
Nebuchadrezzar  was  occupied  in  Babylon,  securing 
his  succession  to  his  father.  At  last,  either  in  602  or 
more  probably  in  600,  he   marched   into   Syria,   and 


30  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Jehoiakim  became  his  servant  for  three  years}  In  such 
a  condition  the  Jewish  state  might  have  survived  for  at 
least  another  generation,^  but  in  599  or  597  Jehoiakim, 
with  the  madness  of  the  doomed,  held  back  his  tribute. 
The  revolt  was  probably  instigated  by  Egypt,  which, 
however,  did  not  dare  to  support  it.  As  in  Isaiah's 
time  against  Assyria,  so  now  against  Babylon,  Egypt 
was  a  blusterer  who  blustered  and  sat  still.  She  still 
helped  in  vain  and  to  no  purpose.^  Nor  could  Judah 
count  on  the  help  of  the  other  states  of  Palestine. 
They  had  joined  Hezekiah  against  Sennacherib,  but 
remembering  perhaps  how  Manasseh  had  failed  to  help 
them  against  Assurbanipal,  and  that  Josiah  had  carried 
things  with  a  high  hand  towards  them,'*  they  obeyed 
Nebuchadrezzar's  command  and  raided  Judah  till  he 
himself  should  have  time  to  arrive.^  Amid  these  raids 
the  senseless  Jehoiakim  seems  to  have  perished,*^  for 
when  Nebuchadrezzar  appeared  before  Jerusalem  in 
597,  his  son  Jehoiachin,  a  youth  of  eighteen,  had 
succeeded  to  the  throne.  The  innocent  reaped  the 
harvest  sown  by  the  guilty.  In  the  attempt  (it  would 
appear)  to  save  his  people  from  destruction/  Jehoiachin 
capitulated.     But  Nebuchadrezzar  was  not  content  with 


*  2  Kings  xxiv.  I.  In  the  chronological  table  appended  to 
Kautzsch's  Bibel  this  verse  and  Jehoiakim's  submission  are  assigned 
to  602.  But  this  allows  too  little  time  for  Nebuchadrezzar  to  con- 
firm his  throne  in  Babylon  and  march  to  Palestine,  and  it  is  not 
corroborated  by  the  record  in  the  Book  of  Jeremiah  of  events  in 
Judah  in  604 — 602. 

^  Nebuchadrezzar  did  not  die  till  562. 

^  See  Isaiah  i. — xxxix.  (Expositor's  Bible),  pp.  223  f. 

■•  See  above,  p.  26,  n.  5. 

*  2  Kings  xxiv.  2. 

®  Jer.  xxxvii.  30,  but  see  2  Kings  xxiv.  6. 

''  SoJosephus  puts  it  (X.  Anh'q.,  vii.  i).     Jehoiachin  was  unusually 


THE  SEVENTH  CENTURY  BEFORE   CHRIST        31 

the  person  of  the  king  :  he  deported  to  Babylon  the 
court,  a  large  number  of  influential  persons,  the  mighty 
men  of  the  land  or  what  must  have  been  nearly  all  the 
fighting  men,  with  the  necessary  military  artificers  and 
swordsmiths.  Priests  also  went,  Ezekiel  among  them, 
and  probably  representatives  of  other  classes  not 
mentioned  by  the  annalist.  All  these  were  the  flower 
of  the  nation.  Over  what  was  left  Nebuchadrezzar 
placed  a  son  of  Josiah  on  the  throne  who  took  the 
name  of  Zedekiah.  Again  with  a  little  common-sense, 
the  state  might  have  survived ;  but  it  was  a  short 
respite.  The  new  court  began  intrigues  with  Egypt, 
and  Zedekiah,  with  the  Ammonites  and  Tyre,  ventured 
a  revolt  in  589.  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  knew  it  was 
in  vain.  Nebuchadrezzar  marched  on  Jerusalem,  and 
though  for  a  time  he  had  to  raise  the  siege  in  order  to 
defeat  a  force  sent  by  Pharaoh  Hophra,  the  Chaldean 
armies  closed  in  again  upon  the  doomed  city.  Her 
defence  was  stubborn;  but  famine  and  pestilence 
sapped  it,  and  numbers  fell  away  to  the  enemy.  About 
the  eighteenth  month,  the  besiegers  took  the  northern 
suburb  and  stormed  the  middle  gate.  Zedekiah  and  the 
army  broke  their  lines  only  to  be  captured  at  Jericho. 
In  a  few  weeks  more  the  city  was  taken  and  given 
over  to  fire.  Zedekiah  was  blinded,  and  with  a  large 
number  of  his  people  carried  to  Babylon.  It  was  the 
end,  for  although  a  small  community  of  Jews  was  left 
at  Mizpeh  under  a  Jewish  viceroy  and  with  Jeremiah 
to  guide  them,  they  were  soon  broken  up  and  fled  to 
Egypt.     Judah  had  perished.     Her  savage  neighbours, 

bewailed  (Lam.  iv.  20;  Ezek.  xvii.  22  ff.).  He  survived  in  captivity 
till  the  death  of  Nebuchadrezzar,  whose  successor  Evil-Merodach 
in  561  took  him  from  prison  and  gave  him  a  place  in  his  palace 
(2  Kings  XXV.  27  ff.). 


32  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

who  had  gathered  with  glee  to  the  day  of  Jerusalem's 
calamity,  assisted  the  Chaldeans  in  capturing  the 
fugitives,  and  Edomites  came  up  from  the  south  on 
the  desolate  land. 


It  has  been  necessary  to  follow  so  far  the  course  of 
events,  because  of  our  prophets  Zephaniah  is  placed 
in  each  of  the  three  sections  of  Josiah's  reign,  and  by 
some  even  in  Jehoiakim's  ;  Nahum  has  been  assigned  to 
different  points  between  the  eve  of  the  first  and  the  eve 
of  the  second  siege  of  Niniveh  ;  and  Habakkuk  has 
been  placed  by  different  critics  in  almost  every  year 
from  62 1  to  the  reign  of  Jehoiachin  ;  while  Obadiah, 
whom  we  shall  find  reasons  for  dating  during  the  Exile, 
describes  the  behaviour  of  Edom  at  the  final  siege  of 
Jerusalem.  The  next  of  the  Twelve,  Haggai,  may  have 
been  born  before  the  Exile,  but  did  not  prophesy  till 
520.  Zechariah  appeared  the  same  year,  Malachi  not 
for  half  a  century  after.  These  three  are  prophets  ot 
the  Persian  period.  With  the  approach  of  the  Greeks 
Joel  appears,  then  comes  the  prophecy  which  we  find 
in  the  end  of  Zechariah's  book,  and  last  of  all  the  Book 
of  Jonah.  To  all  these  post-exilic  prophets  we  shall 
provide  later  on  the  necessary  historical  introductions. 


ZEPHANIAH 


VOL.  II.  33 


Dies  Irce,  Dies  Ilia  ! — Zeph.  i.  15. 

"  His  book  is  the  first  tinging  of  prophecy  with  apocalypse  :  that  is 
the  moment  which  it  suppUes  in  the  history  of  Israel's  religion." 


34 


CHAPTER    II 

THE    BOOK    OF   ZEPHANIAH 

THE  Book  of  Zephaniah  is  one  of  the  most  difficult 
in  the  prophetic  canon.  The  title  is  very  gener- 
ally accepted  ;  the  period  from  which  chap.  i.  dates  is 
recognised  by  practically  all  critics  to  be  the  reign  of 
Josiah,  or  at  least  the  last  third  of  the  seventh  century. 
But  after  that  doubts  start,  and  we  find  present  nearly 
every  other  problem  of  introduction. 

To  begin  with,  the  text  is  very  damaged.  In  some 
passages  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  we  have  not  the 
true  text ;  ^  in  others  we  cannot  be  sure  that  we  have 
it,^  and  there  are  several  glosses.^  The  bulk  of  the 
second  chapter  was  written  in  the  Qinah,  or  elegiac 
measure,  but  as  it  now  stands  the  rhythm  is  very 
much  broken.  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  this  is  due 
to  the  dilapidation  of  the  original  text  or  to  wilful 
insertion  of  glosses  and  other  later  passages.  The 
Greek  version  of  Zephaniah  possesses  the  same  general 
features  as  that  of  other  difficult  prophets.  Occasion- 
ally it  enables  us  to  correct  the  text ;  but  by  the  time 
it  was  made  the  text  must  already  have  contained 
the   same   corruptions  which   we    encounter,    and   the 


'  i.  36,  56;  ii.  2,  5,  6,  7,  8  last  word,  l^b;  iii.  18,  19a,  20. 

2  i.  146;  ii.  I,  3;  iii.  I,  5,  6,  7,  8,  10,  15,  17. 

3  i.  36,  5*;  ii.2,  6;  iii.  5(?). 

35 


36  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

translators   were  ignorant  besides  of  the  meaning  of 
some  phrases  which  to  us  are  plain. ^ 

The  difficulties  of  textual  criticism  as  well  as  of 
translation  are  aggravated  by  the  large  number  of  words, 
grammatical  forms  and  phrases  which  either  happen 
very  seldom  in  the  Old  Testament,^  or  nowhere  else 
in  it  at  all.^  Of  the  rare  words  and  phrases,  a  very 
few  (as  will  be  seen  from  the  appended  notes)  are 
found  in  earlier  writings.  Indeed  all  that  are  found 
are  from  the  authentic  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  with  whose 
style  and  doctrine  Zephaniah's  own  exhibit  most 
affinity.  All  the  other  rarities  of  vocabulary  and 
grammar  are  shared  only  by  later  writers ;  and  as  a 
whole  the  language  of  Zephaniah  exhibits  symptoms 
which  separate  it  by  many  years  from  the  language 
of  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century,  and  range  it 
with  that  of  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  the  Second  Isaiah 
and  still  later  literature.  It  may  be  useful  to  the 
student  to  collect  in  a  note  the  most  striking  of  these 

'  For  details  see  translation  below. 

2  i.  3,  ntbc^DO,  only  in  Isa.  iii.  6;  15,  HNI^^D,  only  in  Job  xxx.  3, 
xxxviii.  27— cfl  Psalms  Ixxiii.  18,  Ixxiv.  3  ;  ii.  8,  D''S1J,  Isa.  xliii.  28 — 
cf.  li.  7';  9,  ?1"in,  Prov.  xxiv.  31,  Job  xxx.  7;  15,  \^VpV^  Isa.  xxii.  2, 
xxiii.  7,  xxxii.  13 — cf.  xiii.  3,  xxiv.  8 ;  iii.  I,  H/'NJJ,  see  next  note  but 
one;  3,  ny  ^DXT,  Hab.  i.  8;  11,  iniN:i  '\hv^  Isa.  xiii.  3;  18,  ^JIJ, 
Lam.  i.  4,  niilJ- 

®  i.  II,  ^riDDH  as  the  name  of  a  part  of  Jerusalem,  otherwise  only 
Jer.  XV.  19  ;  ^103  V''t3J  ;  12,  KDp  in  pt.  Oal,  and  otherwise  only  Exod. 
XV.  8,  Zech.  xiv.  6,  Job  x.  10;  14,  "IH^  (adj.),  but  the  pointing  may 
be  wrong— cf.  Maher-shalal-hash-baz,  Isa.  viii.  i,  3 ;  WTi  in  Qal, 
elsewhere  only  once  in  Hi.  Isa.  xiii.  13 ;  17,  DIH?  in  sense  of  flesh,  cf. 
Job  XX.  23;  18,  rhr^l':^  if  a  noun  (?)  ;  ii.  I,  ^^\>  in  Qal  and  Hithpo, 
elsewhere  only  in  Polel ;  9,  pEJ'DD,  m2D;  ii,  ntl,  to  make  lean, 
otherwise  only  in  Isa.  xvii.  4,  to  be  lean ;  14,  nflj^  (?)  ;  iii.  i,  HN^O, 
pt.  of  n"lD  ;  niV,  pt.  Qal,  in  Jer.  xlvi.  16,  1.  16,  it  may  be  a  noun  ; 

4,  mnn  ^m^-,  6,  M-fy,  9,  nnx  ddk';  10,  '•>;iD-nn  nni;(?);  15,  njs 

in  sense  to  turn  away ;   i8,  VH  y^D  (?). 


THE  BOOK  OF  ZEPHANIAH  yj 

symptoms  of  the  comparative  lateness  of  Zephaniah's 
dialect.^ 

We  now  come  to  the  question  of  date,  and  we  take, 
to  begin  with,  the  First  Chapter.  It  was  said  above  that 
critics  agree  as  to  the  general  period — between  639, 
when  Josiah  began  to  reign,  and  600.  But  this  period 
was  divided  into  three  very  different  sections,  and  each 
of  these  has  received  considerable  support  from  modern 
criticism.  The  great  majority  of  critics  place  the 
chapter  in  the  early  years  of  Josiah,  before  the  enforce- 
ment of  Deuteronomy  and  the  great  Reform  in  621.^ 
Others  have  argued  for  the  later  years  of  Josiah, 
621 — 608,  on  the  ground  that  the  chapter  implies  that 
the  great  Reform  has  already  taken  place,  and  other- 
wise shows  knowledge  of  Deuteronomy  ;  ^  while  some 
prefer  the  days  of  reaction  under  Jehoiakim,  608  ff.,* 
and  assume  that  the  phrase  in  tKe  title,  in  the  days  of 
Josiah,  is  a  late  and  erroneous  inference  from  i.  4. 

The  evidence  for  the  argument  consists  of  the  title 
and  the  condition  of  Judah  reflected  in  the  body  of  the 


'  i.  8,  etc,  W  Ipa,  followed  by  person,  but  not  by  thing— cf. 
Jer.  ix.  24,  xxiii.  34,  etc.,  Job  xxxvi.  23,  2  Chron.  xxxvi.  23,  Ezek. 
i.  2;  13,  HDE^D,  only  in  Hab.  ii.  7,  Isa.  xlii,,  Jer.  xxx.  16,  2  Kings 
xxi.  14;  17,  "l^rij  Hi.  of  "IIV,  only  in  i  Kings  viii.  37,  and  Deut.,  2  Chron., 
Jer.,  Neh.;  ii."'"3,  mji; ;  8,  D^SHJ,  Isa.  xliii.  28,  li.  7  (fem.  pi.);  9,  Plin, 
Prov.  xxiv.  31,  Job  xxx.  7;  iii.  i,  n7t<!lJ,  Ni,  pt.  =  impure,  Isa. 
lix.  3,  Lam.  iv.  14;  nj1\  a  pt.  in  Jer.  xlvi.  16,  1.  16;  3,  I'W  OXT, 
Hab.  i.  8— cf.  Jer.  v.  6,  nmj;  nj^T ;  9,  "in^,  Isa.  xlix.  2,  lia, 
Ezek.  XX.  38,  I  Chron.  vii.  40,  ix.  22,  xvi.  41,  Neh.  v.  18,  Job 
xxxiii.  3,  Eccles.  iii.  18,  ix.  i  ;  ii,  DIJ^J  ^'ihv,  Isa.  xiii.  3;  18,  \>13, 
Lam.  i.   4  has  niH-ll 

2  So  Hitzig,  Ewald,  Pusey,  Kuenen,  Robertson  Smith  {Encyc.  Brit), 
Driver,  Wellhausen,  Kirkpatrick,  Budde,  von  Orelli,  Cornill,  Schv^ally, 
Davidson. 

3  So  Delitzsch,  Kleinert,  and  Schulz  (jCofm^ientar  uber  den  Proph. 
Zeph.,  1892,  p.  7,  quoted  by  Konig).  ^  So  Konig. 


38  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

chapter.  The  latter  is  a  definite  piece  of  oratory. 
Under  the  alarm  of  an  immediate  and  general  war, 
Zephaniah  proclaims  a  vast  destruction  upon  the  earth. 
Judah  must  fall  beneath  it :  the  worshippers  of  Baal, 
of  the  host  of  heaven  and  of  Milcom,  the  apostates 
from  Jehovah,  the  princes  and  house  of  the  king,  the 
imitators  of  foreign  fashions,  and  the  forceful  and 
fraudulent,  shall  be  cut  off  in  a  great  slaughter.  Those 
who  have  grown  sceptical  and  indifferent  to  Jehovah 
shall  be  unsettled  by  invasion  and  war.  This  shall 
be  the  Day  of  Jehovah,  near  and  immediate,  a  day  of 
battle  and  disaster  on  the  whole  land. 

The  conditions  reflected  are  thus  twofold — the  idola- 
trous and  sceptical  state  of  the  people,  and  an  impending 
invasion.  But  these  suit,  more  or  less  exactly,  each 
of  the  three  sections  of  our  period.  For  Jeremiah 
distinctly  states  that  he  had  to  attack  idolatry  in  Judah 
for  twenty-three  years,  627  to  604 ;  ^  he  inveighs  against 
the  falseness  and  impurity  of  the  people  alike  before 
the  great  Reform,  and  after  it  while  Josiah  was  still 
alive,  and  still  more  fiercely  under  Jehoiakim.  And, 
while  before  621  the  great  Scythian  invasion  was 
sweeping  upon  Palestine  from  the  north,  after  621, 
and  especially  after  604,  the  Babylonians  from  the  same 
quarter  were  visibly  threatening  the  land.  But  when 
looked  at  more  closely,  the  chapter  shows  several 
features  which  suit  the  second  section  of  our  period  less 
than  they  do  the  other  two.  The  worship  of  the  host  ot 
heaven,  probably  introduced  under  Manasseh,  was  put 
down  by  Josiah  in  621  ;  it  revived  under  Jehoiakim,^ 
but  during  the  latter  years  of  Josiah  it  cannot 
possibly  have  been  so  pubUc  as  Zephaniah  describes.^ 

'  Jer.  XXV.  2  Jer.  vii.  18.  ^  i.  3. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ZEPHANIAH  39 

Other  reasons  which  have  been  given  for  those  years 
are  inconclusive  ^ — the  chapter,  for  instance,  makes  no 
indubitable  reference  to  Deuteronomy  or  the  Covenant 
of  621 — and  on  the  whole  we  may  leave  the  end  of 
Josiah's  reign  out  of  account.  Turning  to  the  third 
section,  Jehoiakim's  reign,  we  find  one  feature  of  the 
prophecy  which  suits  it  admirably.  The  temper  de- 
scribed in  ver.  12 — men  who  are  settled  on  their  lees, 
who-  say  in  their  heart,  Jehovah  doeth  neither  good  nor 
evil — is  the  kind  of  temper  likely  to  have  been  produced 
among  the  less  earnest  adherents  of  Jehovah  by  the 
failure  of  the  great  Reform  in  62 1  to  effect  either  the 
purity  or  the  prosperity  of  the  nation.  But  this  is 
more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  significant  exception 
of  the  king  from  the  condemnation  which  ver.  8  passes 

'  Kleinert  in  his  Commentary  in  Lange's  Bibelwerk,  and  Delitzsch 
in  his  article  in  Herzog's  Real-Encydopadie^,  both  offer  a  number  of 
inconclusive  arguments.  These  are  drawn  from  the  position  of 
Zephaniah  after  Habakkuk,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  the  order  of  the 
Twelve  is  not  always  chronological ;  from  the  supposition  that 
Zephaniah  i.  7,  Silence  before  the  Lord  Jehovah,  quotes  Habakkuk  ii. 
20,  Keep  silence  before  Him,  all  the  earth,  but  the  phrase  common  to 
both  is  too  general  to  be  decisive,  and  if  borrowed  by  one  or  other 
may  just  as  well  have  been  Zephaniah's  originally  as  Habakkuk's; 
from  the  phrase  remnant  of  Baal  (i.  4),  as  if  this  were  appropriate 
only  after  the  Reform  of  621,  but  it  was  quite  as  appropriate  after 
the  beginnings  of  reform  six  years  earlier ;  from  the  condemnation 
of  the  sons  of  the  king  (i.  8),  whom  Delitzsch  takes  as  Josiah's  sons, 
who  before  the  great  Reform  were  too  young  to  be  condemned, 
while  later  their  characters  did  develop  badly  and  judgment  fell 
upon  all  of  them,  but  sojis  of  the  king,  even  if  that  be  the  correct 
reading  (LXX.  house  of  the  king),  does  not  necessarily  mean  the 
reigning  monarch's  children  ;  and  from  the  assertion  that  Deuteronomy 
is  quoted  in  the  first  chapter  of  Zephaniah,  and  "  so  quoted  as  to  show 
that  the  prophet  needs  only  to  put  the  people  in  mind  of  it  as  some- 
thing supposed  to  be  known,"  but  the  verses  cited  in  support  of  this 
(viz.  13,  15,  17  :  cf  Deut.  xxviii.  30  and  29)  are  too  general  in  their 
character  to  prove  the  assertion.     See  translation  below. 


40  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

on  the  princes  and  the  sons  of  the  king.  Such  an  ex- 
ception could  not  have  been  made  when  Jehoiakim  was 
on  the  throne ;  it  points  almost  conclusively  to  the 
reign  of  the  good  Josiah.  And  with  this  agrees  the 
title  of  the  chapter — in  the  days  of  Josiah}  We  are, 
therefore,  driven  back  to  the  years  of  Josiah  before 
621.  In  these  we  find  no  discrepancy  either  with  the 
chapter  itself,  or  with  its  title.  The  southward  march 
of  the  Scythians,"  between  630  and  625,  accounts  for 
Zephaniah's  alarm  of  a  general  war,  including  the 
invasion  of  Judah ;  the  idolatrous  practices  which  he 
describes  may  well  have  been  those  surviving  from 
the  days  of  Manasseh,^  and  not  yet  reached  by  the 
drastic  measures  of  62 1  ;  the  temper  of  scepticism  and 
hopelessness  condemned  by  ver.  1 2  was  possible  among 
those  adherents  of  Jehovah  who  had  hoped  greater 
things  from  the  overthrow  of  Amon  than  the  slow  and 
small  reforms  of  the  first  fifteen  years  of  Josiah's  reign. 
Nor  is  a  date  before  621  made  at  all  difficult  by 
the  genealogy  of  Zephaniah  in  the  title.  If,  as  is 
probable,^  the  Hezekiah  given  as  his  great-great- 
grandfather be  Hezekiah  the  king,  and  if  he  died 
about  695,  and  Manasseh,  his  successor,  who  was  then 
twelve,  was  his  eldest  son,  then  by  630  Zephaniah 
cannot  have  been  much  more  than  twenty  years  of  age, 

^  Konig  has  to  deny  the  authenticity  of  this  in  order  to  make  his 
case  for  the  reign  of  Jehoiakim.  But  nearly  all  critics  take  the  phrase 
as  genuine. 

^  See  above,  p.  15.  For  inconclusive  reasons  Schwally,  Z.A.T.W., 
1890,  pp.  215-217,  prefers  the  Egyptians  under  Psamtik.  See  in  answer 
Davidson,  p.  98. 

^  Not  much  stress  can  be  laid  upon  the  phrase  /  will  cut  off  the 
remnant  of  Baal,  ver.  4,  for,  if  the  reading  be  correct,  it  may  only  mean 
the  destruction  of  Baal-worship,  and  not  the  uprooting  of  what  has 
been  left  over.  '•  See  below,  p.  47,  n.  2. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ZEPHANIAH 


and  not  more  than  twenty-five  by  the  time  the  Scythian 
invasion  had  passed  away/  It  is  therefore  by  no 
means  impossible  to  suppose  that  he  prophesied  before 
625  ;  and  besides,  the  data  of  the  genealogy  in  the 
title  are  too  precarious  to  make  them  valid,  as  against 
an  inference  from  the  contents  of  the  chapter  itself. 

The  date,  therefore,  of  the  first  chapter  of  Zephaniah 
may  be  given  as  about  625  b.c,  and  probably  rather 
before  than  after  that  year,  as  the  tide  of  Scythian 
invasion  has  apparently  not  3^et  ebbed. 

The  other  two  chapters  have  within  recent  years  been 
almost  wholly  denied  to  Zephaniah.  Kuenen  doubted 
chap.  iii.  9-20.  Stade  makes  all  chap.  iii.  post-exilic, 
and  suspects  ii.  1-3,  ii.  A  very  thorough  examination 
of  them  has  led  Schwally  ^  to  assign  to  exilic  or  post- 
exilic  times  the  whole  of  the  little  sections  comprising 
them,  with  the  possible  exception  of  chap.  iii.  1-7,  which 
*'  may  be  "  Zephaniah's.  His  essay  has  been  subjected 
to  a  searching  and  generally  hostile  criticism  by  a 
number  of  leading  scholars  ;  ^  and  he  has  admitted  the 
inconclusiveness  of  some  of  his  reasons.* 

Chap.  ii.  1-4  is  assigned  by  Schwally  to  a  date  later 
than  Zephaniah's,  principally  because  of  the  term  meek- 
ness (ver.  3),  which  is  a  favourite  one  with  post-exilic 
writers.     He  has  been  sufficiently  answered  ;  ^  and  the 

'  If  695  be  the  date  of  the  accession  of  Manasseh,  being  then  twelve, 
Amariah,  Zephaniah's  great-grandfather,  cannot  have  been  more  than 
ten,  that  is,  born  in  705.  His  son  Gedaliah  was  probably  not  born 
before  689,  his  son  Kushi  probably  not  before  672,  and  his  son 
Zephaniah  probably  not  before  650. 

-  Z.A.T.W.,  1890,  Heft  I. 

3  Bacher,  Z.A.T.W.,  1891,  186;  Cornill,  Einleitung,  1891;  Budde, 
Theol.  Stud.  u.  Krit.,  1893,  393  ff. ;  Davidson,  Nah.,  Hab.  and  Zeph., 
100  ff.  ^  Z.A.T.W.,  1891,  Heft  2. 

^  By  especially  Bacher,  Cornill  and  Budde  as  above. 


42  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

close  connection  of  vv.  1-3  with  chap.  i.  has  been  clearly 
proved.^  Chap.  ii.  4-15  is  the  passage  in  elegiac 
measure  but  broken,  an  argument  for  the  theory  that 
insertions  have  been  made  in  it.  The  subject  is  a 
series  of  foreign  nations — Philistia  (5-7),  Moab  and 
Ammon  (8-10),  Egypt  (11)  and  Assyria  (13-15).  The 
passage  has  given  rise  to  many  doubts  ;  every  one  must 
admit  the  difficulty  of  coming  to  a  conclusion  as  to  its 
authenticity.  On  the  one  hand,  the  destruction  just 
predicted  is  so  universal  that,  as  Professor  Davidson 
says,  we  should  expect  Zephaniah  to  mention  other 
nations  than  Judah.^  The  concluding  oracle  on  Niniveh 
must  have  been  published  before  608,  and  even  Schwally 
admits  that  it  may  be  Zephaniah's  own.  But  if  this  be 
so,  then  we  may  infer  that  the  first  of  the  oracles  on 
Philistia  is  also  Zephaniah's,  for  both  it  and  the  oracle 
on  Assyria  are  in  the  elegiac  measure,  a  fact  which 
makes  it  probable  that  the  whole  passage,  however 
broken  and  intruded  upon^  was  originally  a  unity.  Nor 
is  there  anything  in  the  oracle  on  PhiUstia  incompatible 
with  Zephaniah's  date.  Philistia  lay  on  the  path  of 
the  Scythian  invasion  ;  the  phrase  in  ver.  7,  shall  turn 
their  captivity,  is  not  necessarily  exilic.  As  Cornill,  too, 
points  out,  the  expression  in  ver.  13,  //<?  will  stretch  out 
His  hand  to  the  north,  implies  that  the  prophecy  has 
already  looked  in  other  directions.  There  remains  the 
passage  between  the  oracles  on  Philistia  and  Assyria. 
This  is  not  in  the  elegiac  measure.     Its  subject  is  Moab 

'  See  Budde  and  Davidson. 

^  The  ideal  of  chap.  i. — ii.  3,  of  the  final  security  of  a  poor  and  lowly 
remnant  of  Israel,  "  necessarily  implies  that  they  shall  no  longer  be 
threatened  by  hostility  from  without,  and  this  condition  is  satisfied 
by  the  prophet's  view  of  the  impending  judgment  on  the  ancient 
enemies  of  his  nation,"  i.e.  those  mentioned  in  ii.  4-15  (Robertson 
Smith,  Encyc.  Brit,  art.  "Zephaniah"). 


THE  BOOK  OF  ZEPHANIAH  43 

and  Ammon,  who  were  not  on  the  line  of  the  Scythian 
invasion,  and  Wellhausen  further  objects  to  it,  because 
the  attitude  to  Israel  of  the  two  peoples  whom  it 
describes  is  that  which  is  attributed  to  them  only  just 
before  the  Exile  and  surprises  us  in  Josiah's  reign. 
Dr.  Davidson  meets  this  objection  by  pointing  out  that, 
iust  as  in  Deuteronomy,  so  here,  Moab  and  Ammon 
are  denounced,  while  Edom,  which  in  Deuteronomy  is 
spoken  of  with  kindness,  is  here  not  denounced  at  all. 
A  stronger  objection  to  the  passage  is  that  ver.  1 1 
predicts  the  conversion  of  the  nations,  while  ver.  12 
makes  them  the  prey  of  Jehovah's  sword,  and  in  this 
ver.  12  follows  on  naturally  to  ver.  7.  On  this  ground 
as  well  as  on  the  absence  of  the  elegiac  measure  the 
oracle  on  Moab  and  Ammon  is  strongly  to  be  suspected. 

On  the  whole,  then,  the  most  probable  conclusion  is 
that  chap.  ii.  4-15  was  originally  an  authentic  oracle  of 
Zephaniah's  in  the  elegiac  metre,  uttered  at  the  same 
date  as  chap.  i. — ii.  3,  the  period  of  the  Scythian 
invasion^  though  from  a  different  standpoint;  and 
that  it  has  suffered  considerable  dilapidation  (witness 
especially  vv.  6  and  14),  and  probably  one  great 
intrusion,  vv.  8-10. 

There  remains  the  Third  Chapter.  The  authenticity 
has  been  denied  by  Schwally,  who  transfers  the  whole 
till  after  the  Exile.     But  the  chapter  is  not  a  unity. ^ 

'  See,  however,  Davidson  for  some  linguistic  reasons  for  taking  the 
two  sections  as  one.  Robertson  Smith,  also  in  1888  (Encyc.  Brit., 
art.  "Zephaniah"),  assumed  (though  not  without  pointing  out  the 
possibility  of  the  addition  of  other  pieces  to  the  genuine  prophecies 
of  Zephaniah)  that  "a  single  leading  motive  runs  through  the  whole" 
book,  and  "  the  first  two  chapters  would  be  incomplete  without  the 
third,  which  moreover  is  certainly  pre-exilic  (vv.  1-4)  and  presents 
specific  points  of  contact  with  what  precedes,  as  well  as  a  general 
agreement  in  style  and  idea." 


44  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

In  the  first  place,  it  falls  into  two  sections,  vv.  1-13  and 
14-20.  There  is  no  reason  to  take  away  the  bulk  of 
the  first  section  from  Zephaniah.  As  Schwally  admits, 
the  argument  here  is  parallel  to  that  of  chap.  i. — ii.  3.  It 
could  hardly  have  been  applied  to  Jerusalem  during  or 
after  the  Exile,  but  suits  her  conditions  before  her  fall. 
Schwally's  linguistic  objections  to  a  pre-exilic  date  have 
been  answered  by  Budde.^  He  holds  ver.  6  to  be  out 
of  place  and  puts  it  after  ver.  8,  and  this  may  be.  But  as 
it  stands  it  appeals  to  the  impenitent  Jews  of  ver.  5  with 
the  picture  of  the  judgment  God  has  already  completed 
upon  the  nations,  and  contrasts  with  ver.  7,  in  which 
God  says  that  He  trusts  Israel  will  repent.  Vv.  9  and 
10  are,  we  shall  see,  obviously  an  intrusion,  as  Budde 
maintains  and  Davidson  admits  to  be  possible.^ 

We  reach  more  certainty  when  we  come  to  the 
second  section  of  the  chapter,  vv.  14-20.  Since 
Kuenen  it  has  been  recognised  by  the  majority  of  critics 
that  we  have  here  a  prophecy  from  the  end  of  the  Exile 
or  after  the  Return.  The  temper  has  changed.  In- 
stead of  the  austere  and  sombre  outlook  of  chap, 
i. — ii.  3  and  chap.  iii.  1-13,  in  which  the  sinful  Israel 
is  to  be  saved  indeed,  but  only  as  by  fire,  we  have 
a  triumphant  prophecy  of  her  recovery  from  all  afflic- 
tion (nothing  is  said  of  her  sin)  and  of  her  glory  among 


*  Schwally  (234)  thinks  that  the  epithet  pn^  (ver.  5)  was  first 
applied  to  Jehovah  by  the  Second  Isaiah  (xlv.  21,  Ixiv.  2,  xlii.  21), 
and  became  frequent  from  his  time  on.  In  disproof  Budde  (3398) 
quotes  Exod.  ix.  27,  Jer.  xii.  i,  Lam.  i.  18.  Schwally  also  points  to 
nVJ  as  borrowed  from  Aramaic. 

*  Budde,  p.  395;  Davidson,  103.  Schwally  (230  ff.)  seeks  to  prove 
the  unity  of  9  and  10  with  the  context,  but  he  has  apparently  mistaken 
the  meaning  of  ver.  8  (231).  That  surely  does  not  mean  that  the 
nations  are  gathered  in  order  to  punish  the  godlessness  of  the  Jews, 
but  that  they  may  themselves  be  punished. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ZEPHANIAH  45 

the  nations  of  the  world.  To  put  it  otherwise,  while 
the  genuine  prophecies  of  Zephaniah  almost  grudgingly 
allow  a  door  of  escape  to  a  few  righteous  and  humble 
Israelites  from  a  judgment  which  is  to  fall  alike  on 
Israel  and  the  Gentiles,  chap.  iii.  14-20  predicts  Israel's 
deliverance  from  her  Gentile  oppressors,  her  return 
from  captivity  and  the  establishment  of  her  renown 
over  the  earth.  The  language,  too,  has  many  re- 
semblances to  that  of  Second  Isaiah.^  Obviously  there- 
fore we  have  here,  added  to  the  severe  prophecies  of 
Zephaniah,  such  a  more  hopeful,  peaceful  epilogue  as 
we  saw  was  added,  during  the  Exile  or  immediately 
after  it,  to  the  despairing  prophecies  of  Amos. 

'  See  Davidson,  103. 


CHAPTER    III 
THE  PROPHET  AND   THE  REFORMERS 

Zephaniah  i.-^ii.  3 

TOWARDS  the  year  625,  when  King  Josiah  had 
passed  out  of  his  minority/  and  was  making 
his  first  efforts  at  religious  reform,  prophecy,  long 
slumbering,  awoke  again  in  Israel. 

Like  the  king  himself,  its  first  heralds  were  men  in 
their  early  youth.  In  627  Jeremiah  calls  himself  but 
a  boy,  and  Zephaniah  can  hardly  have  been  out  of 
his  teens.^  For  the  sudden  outbreak  of  these  young 
lives  there  must  have  been  a  large  reservoir  of  patience 
and  hope  gathered  in  the  generation  behind  them. 
So  Scripture  itself  testifies.  To  Jeremiah  it  was  said  : 
Before  I  formed  thee  in  the  belly  I  knew  thee,  and  before 
thou  earnest  forth  out  of  the  womb  I  consecrated  thee?  In 
an  age  when  names  were  bestowed  only  because  of 
their  significance,''  both  prophets  bore  that  of  Jehovah 
in  their  own.  So  did  Jeremiah's  father,  who  was  of 
the  priests  of  Anathoth.  Zephaniah's  "forbears"  are 
given    for    four   generations,    and    with   one  exception 


'  Josiah,  born  c.  648,  succeeded  c.  639,  was  about  eighteen  in  630, 
and  then  appears  to  have  begun  his  reforms. 
^  See  above,  pp.  40  f.,  n.  i . 
3  Jer.  i.  5. 

^  See  G.  B.  Gray,  Hebrew  Proper  Names. 
46 


Zeph.  i.-ii.  3]   THE  PROPHET  AND    THE  REFORMERS      47 

they  also  are  called  after  Jehovah  :  The  Word  of 
Jehovah  which  came  to  Sephanyah,  son  of  Kushi^  son  of 
Gedhalyah^  son  of  Amaryahy  son  of  Hizkiyahj  in  the 
days  of  Joshiyahu^  Ainon^s  son,  king  of  Judah. 
Zephaniah's  great-great-grandfather  Hezekiah  was  in 
all  probability  the  king.^  His  father's  name  Kushi, 
or  Ethiop,  is  curious.  If  we  are  right,  that  Zephaniah 
was  a  young  man  towards  625,  then  Kushi  must  have 
been  born  towards  663,  about  the  time  of  the  conflicts 
between  Assyria  and  Egypt,  and  it  is  possible  that,  as 
Manasseh  and  the  predominant  party  in  Judah  so 
closely  hung  upon  and  imitated  Assyria,  the  adherents 
of  Jehovah  put  their  hope  in  Egypt,  whereof,  it  may  be, 
this  name  Kushi  is  a  token. ^  The  name  Zephaniah 
itself,  meaning  fehovah  hath  hidden,  suggests  the 
prophet's  birth  in  the  *'  killing-time "  of  Manasseh. 
There  was  at  least  one  other  contemporary  of  the 
same  name — a  priest  executed  by  Nebuchadrezzar.* 


^  Josiah. 

^  It  is  not  usual  in  the  O.T.  to  carry  a  man's  genealogy  beyond 
his  grandfather,  except  for  some  special  purpose,  or  in  order  to 
include  some  ancestor  of  note.  Also  the  name  Hezekiah  is  very 
rare  apart  from  the  king.  The  number  of  names  compounded  with 
Jah  or  Jehovah  is  another  proof  that  the  line  is  a  royal  one.  The 
omission  of  the  phrase  king  of  Judah  after  Hezekiah's  name  proves 
nothing;  it  may  have  been  of  purpose  because  the  phrase  has  to 
occur  immediately  again. 

3  It  was  not  till  652  that  a  league  was  made  between  the  Palestine 
princes  and  Psamtik  I.  against  Assyria.  This  certainly  would  have 
been  the  most  natural  year  for  a  child  to  be  named  Kushi.  But 
that  would  set  the  birth  of  Zephaniah  as  late  as  632,  and  his  pro- 
phecy towards  the  end  of  Josiah's  reign,  which  we  have  seen  to 
be  improbable  on  other  grounds, 

*  Jer.  xxi.  I,  xxix.  25, 29,xxxvii.  3,  Hi.  24fF. ;  2  Kings xxv.  18.  The 
analogous  Phoenician  name  7l^33DX  Saphan-ba'al  =  *'Baal  protects 
or  hides,"  is  found  in  No.  207  of  the  Phoenician  inscriptions  in  the 
Corpus  Inscr,  Semiticarwn, 


48  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Of  the  adherents  of  Jehovah,  then,  and  probably 
of  royal  descent,  Zephaniah  lived  in  Jerusalem.  We 
descry  him  against  her,  almost  as  clearly  as  we 
descry  Isaiah.  In  the  glare  and  smoke  of  the  con- 
flagration vi^hich  his  vision  sweeps  across  the  world, 
only  her  features  stand  out  definite  and  particular  : 
the  flat  roofs  with  men  and  women  bowing  in  the 
twilight  to  the  host  of  heaven,  the  crowds  of  priests, 
the  nobles  and  their  foreign  fashions ;  the  Fishgate^  the 
New  or  Second  Town,  where  the  rich  lived,  the  Heights 
to  which  building  had  at  last  spread,  and  between 
them  the  hollow  Mortar^  with  its  markets,  Phoenician 
merchants  and  money-dealers.  In  the  first  few  verses 
of  Zephaniah  we  see  almost  as  much  of  Jerusalem  as 
in  the  whole  book  either  of  Isaiah  or  Jeremiah. 

For  so  young  a  man  the  vision  of  Zephaniah  may  seem 
strangely  dark  and  final.  Yet  not  otherwise  was  Isaiah's 
inaugural  vision,  and  as  a  rule  it  is  the  young  and  not 
the  old  whose  indignation  is  ardent  and  unsparing. 
Zephaniah  carries  this  temper  to  the  extreme.  There 
is  no  great  hope  in  his  book,  hardly  any  tenderness 
and  never  a  glimpse  of  beauty.  A  townsman,  Zephaniah 
has  no  eye  for  nature  ;  not  only  is  no  fair  prospect 
described  by  him,  he  has  not  even  a  single  metaphor 
drawn  from  nature's  loveliness  or  peace.  He  is 
pitilessly  true  to  his  great  keynotes  :  /  will  sweeps 
sweep  from  the  face  of  the  ground ;  He  will  biirn^  burn 
up  everything.  No  hotter  book  lies  in  all  the  Old 
Testament.  Neither  dew  nor  grass  nor  tree  nor  any 
blossom  lives  in  it,  but  it  is  everywhere  fire,  smoke 
and  darkness,  drifting  chaff",  ruins,  nettles,  saltpits,  and 
owls  and  ravens  looking  from  the  windows  of  desolate 
palaces.  Nor  does  Zephaniah  foretell  the  restoration 
of  nature  in  the  end  of  the  days.     There  is  no  prospect 


Zeph.  i.-ii.  3]    THE  PROPHET  AND   THE  REFORMERS     49 

of  a  redeemed  and  fruitful  land,  but  only  of  a  group 
of  battered  and  hardly  saved  characters :  a  few  meek 
and  righteous  are  hidden  from  the  fire  and  creep  forth 
when  it  is  over.  Israel  is  left  a  poor  and  humble  folk. 
No  prophet  is  more  true  to  the  doctrine  of  the  remnant, 
or  more  resolutely  refuses  to  modify  it.  Perhaps  he 
died  young. 

.  The  full  truth,  however,  is  that  Zephaniah,  though 
he  found  his  material  in  the  events  of  his  own  day,  tears 
himself  loose  from  history  altogether.  To  the  earlier 
prophets  the  Day  of  the  Lord,  the  crisis  of  the  world, 
is  a  definite  point  in  history  :  full  of  terrible,  divine 
events,  yet  "  natural "  ones — battle,  siege,  famine, 
massacre  and  captivity.  After  it  history  is  still  to  flow 
on,  common  days  come  back  and  Israel  pursue  their 
way  as  a  nation.  But  to  Zephaniah  the  Day  of  the 
Lord  begins  to  assume  what  we  call  the  *'  supernatural." 
The  grim  colours  are  still  woven  of  war  and  siege,  but 
mixed  with  vague  and  solemn  terrors  from  another 
sphere,  by  which  history  appears  to  be  swallowed 
up,  and  it  is  only  with  an  effort  that  the  prophet 
thinks  of  a  rally  of  Israel  beyond.  In  short,  with 
Zephaniah  the  Day  of  the  Lord  tends  to  become  the 
Last  Day.  His  book  is  the  first  tinging  of  prophecy  with 
apocalypse  :  that  is  the  moment  which  it  suppHes  in 
the  history  of  Israel's  religion.  And,  therefore,  it  was 
with  a  true  instinct  that  the  great  Christian  singer  of 
the  Last  Day  took  from  Zephaniah  his  keynote.  The 
"  Dies  Irae,  Dies  Ilia  "  of  Thomas  of  Celano  is  but  the 
Vulgate  translation  of  Zephaniah's  A  day  of  wrath  is 
that  day} 

'  Chap.  i.   15.     With   the  above  paragraph  cf.  Robertson  Smith, 
Encyc.  Brit.,  art.  "  Zephaniah." 

VOL.  II.  4 


so  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


Nevertheless,  though  the  first  of  apocalyptic  writers, 
Zephaniah  does  not  allow  himself  the  license  of  apoca- 
lypse. As  he  refuses  to  imagine  great  glory  for  the 
righteous,  so  he  does  not  dwell  on  the  terrors  of  the 
wicked.  He  is  sober  and  restrained,  a  matter-of-fact 
man,  yet  with  power  of  imagination,  who,  amidst  the 
vague  horrors  he  summons,  delights  in  giving  a  sharp 
realistic  impression.  The  Day  of  the  Lord,  he  says, 
what  is  it  ?     A  strong  man — there  ! — crying  bitterly} 

It  is  to  the  fierce  ardour,  and  to  the  elemental  interests 
of  the  book,  that  we  owe  the  absence  of  two  features 
of  prophecy  which  are  so  constant  in  the  prophets  of 
the  eighth  century.  Firstly,  Zephaniah  betrays  no 
interest  in  the  practical  reforms  which  (if  we  are  right 
about  the  date)  the  young  king,  his  contemporary,  had 
already  started.^  There  was  a  party  of  reform,  the 
party  had  a  programme,  the  programme  was  drawn 
from  the  main  principles  of  prophecy  and  was  designed 
to  put  these  into  practice.  And  Zephaniah  was  a 
prophet — and  ignored  them.  This  forms  the  dramatic 
interest  of  his  book.  Here  was  a  man  of  the  same  faith 
which  kings,  priests  and  statesmen  were  striving  to 
realise  in  public  life,  in  the  assured  hope — as  is  plain 
from  the  temper  of  Deuteronomy — that  the  nation  as 
a  whole  would  be  reformed  and  become  a  very  great 
nation,  righteous  and  victorious.     All  this  he  ignored. 


*  Chap,  i,  146. 

"^  In  fact  this  forms  one  difficulty  about  the  conclusion  which  we 
have  reached  as  to  the  date.  We  saw  that  one  reason  against  putting 
the  Book  of  Zephaniah  after  the  great  Reforms  of  621  was  that  it 
betrayed  no  sign  of  their  effects.  But  it  might  justly  be  answered  that, 
if  Zephaniah  prophesied  before  621,  his  book  ought  to  betray  some 
sign  of  the  approach  of  reform.  Still  the  explanation  given  above  is 
satisfactory. 


Zeph.i.-ii.3]    THE  PROPHET  AND   THE  REFORMERS     51 

and  gave  his  own  vision  of  the  future  :  Israel  is  a 
brand  plucked  from  the  burning ;  a  very  few  meek 
and  righteous  are  saved  from  the  conflagration  of  a 
whole  world.  Why  ?  Because  for  Zephaniah  the 
elements  were  loose,  and  when  the  elements  were 
loose  what  was  the  use  of  talking  about  reforms  ? 
The  Scythians  were  sweeping  down  upon  Palestine, 
with  enough  of  God's  wrath  in  them  to  destroy  a  people 
still  so  full  of  idolatry  as  Israel  was ;  and  if  not  the 
Scythians,  then  some  other  power  in  that  dark,  rum- 
bling North  which  had  ever  been  so  full  of  doom.  Let 
Josiah  try  to  reform  Israel,  but  it  was  neither  Josiah's 
nor  Israel's  day  that  was  falling.  It  was  the  Day  of 
the  Lord,  and  when  He  came  it  was  neither  to  reform 
nor  to  build  up  Israel,  but  to  make  visitation  and  to 
punish  in  His  wrath  for  the  unbelief  and  wickedness 
of  which  the  nation  was  still  full. 

An  analogy  to  this  dramatic  opposition  between 
prophet  and  reformer  may  be  found  in  our  own  century. 
At  its  crisis,  in  1848,  there  were  many  righteous  men 
rich  in  hope  and  energy.  The  political  institutions  of 
Europe  were  being  rebuilt.  In  our  own  land  there 
were  great  measures  for  the  relief  of  labouring  children 
and  women,  the  organisation  of  labour  and  the  just 
distribution  of  wealth.  But  Carlyle  that  year  held 
apart  from  them  all,  and,  though  a  personal  friend  of 
many  of  the  reformers,  counted  their  work  hopeless  : 
society  was  too  corrupt,  the  rudest  forces  were  loose, 
''  Niagara  "  was  near.  Carlyle  was  proved  wrong  and 
the  reformers  right,  but  in  the  analogous  situation 
of  Israel  the  reformers  were  wrong  and  the  prophet 
right.  Josiah's  hope  and  daring  were  overthrown  at 
Megiddo,  and,  though  the  Scythians  passed  away, 
Zephaniah's  conviction  of  the  sin  and  doom  of  Israel 


S2  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

was  fulfilled,  not  forty  years  later,  in  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  great  Exile. 

Again,  to  the  same  elemental  interests,  as  we  may 
call  them,  is  due  the  absence  from  Zephaniah's  pages 
of  all  the  social  and  individual  studies  which  form  the 
charm  of  other  prophets.  With  one  exception,  there 
is  no  analysis  of  character,  no  portrait,  no  satire.  But 
the  exception  is  worth  dwelling  upon  :  it  describes  the 
temper  equally  abhorred  by  both  prophet  and  reformer 
— that  of  the  indifferent  and  stagnant  man.  Here  we 
have  a  subtle  and  memorable  picture  of  character,  which 
is  not  without  its  warnings  for  our  own  time. 

Zephaniah  heard  God  say :  And  it  shall  be  at  that 
time  that  I  will  search  out  Jerusalem  with  lights^  and  I 
will  make  visitation  upon  the  men  who  are  become 
stagnant  upon  their  lees,  who  say  in  their  hearts,  Jehovah 
doeth  no  good  and  doeth  no  evil}  The  metaphor  is 
clear.  New  wine  was  left  upon  its  lees  only  long 
enough  to  fix  its  colour  and  body.^  If  not  then  drawn 
off  it  grew  thick  and  syrupy — sweeter  indeed  than  the 
strained  wine,  and  to  the  taste  of  some  more  pleasant, 
but  feeble  and  ready  to  decay.  "  To  settle  upon  one's 
lees"  became  a  proverb  for  sloth,  indifference  and  the 
muddy  mind.  Moab  hath  been  at  ease  Jrom  his  youth 
and  hath  settled  upon  his  lees,  and  hath  not  been  emptied 
from  vessel  to  vessel;  therefore  his  taste  stands  in  him  and 
his  scent  is  not  changed.^  The  characters  stigmatised 
by  Zephaniah  are  also  obvious.  They  were  a  pre- 
cipitate from  the  ferment  of  fifteen  years  back.  Through 
the  cruel  days  of  Manasseh  and  Amon  hope  had  been 

*  Chap.  i.  12. 

'■*  So  wine  upon  the  lees  is  a  generous  v/ine  according  to  Isa.  xxv.  6. 

3  Jer.  xlviii.  II. 


Zeph.  i.-ii.  3]     THE  PROPHET  AND   THE  REFORMERS      53 

Stirred  and  strained,  emptied  from  vessel  to  vessel,  and 
so  had  sprung  sparkling  and  keen  into  the  new  days  of 
Josiah.  But  no  miracle  came,  only  ten  years  of  waiting 
for  the  king's  majority  and  five  more  of  small,  tentative 
reforms.  Nothing  divine  happened.  There  were  but 
the  ambiguous  successes  of  a  small  party  who  had 
secured  the  king  for  their  principles.  The  court  was 
still  full  of  foreign  fashions,  and  idolatry  was  rank  upon 
the  housetops.  Of  course  disappointment  ensued — 
disappointment  and  listlessness.  The  new  security 
of  life  became  a  temptation ;  persecution  ceased,  and 
religious  men  lived  again  at  ease.  So  numbers  of 
eager  and  sparkling  souls,  who  had  been  in  the  front 
of  the  movement,  fell  away  into  a  selfish  and  idle 
obscurity.  The  prophet  hears  God  say,  /  must  search 
Jerusalem  with  lights  in  order  to  find  them.  They  had 
*'  fallen  from  the  van  and  the  freemen  "  ;  they  had  ''  sunk 
to  the  rear  and  the  slaves,"  where  they  wallowed  in  the 
excuse  that  Jehovah  Himself  would  do  nothing — neither 
good^  therefore  it  is  useless  to  attempt  reform  like 
Josiah  and  his  party,  nor  evily  therefore  Zephaniah's 
prophecy  of  destruction  is  also  vain.  Exactly  the 
same  temper  was  encountered  by  Mazzini  in  the  second 
stage  of  his  career.  Many  of  those,  who  with  him  had 
eagerly  dreamt  of  a  free  Italy,  fell  away  when  the  first 
revolt  failed — fell  away  not  merely  into  weariness  and 
fear,  but,  as  he  emphasises,  into  the  very  two  tempers 
which  are  described  by  Zephaniah,  scepticism  and 
self-indulgence. 

All  this  starts  questions  for  ourselves.  Here  is 
evidently  the  same  public  temper,  which  at  all  periods 
provokes  alike  the  despair  of  the  reformer  and  the 
indignation  of  the  prophet :  the  criminal  apathy  of  the 
well-to-do  classes  sunk  in  ease  and  religious  indiffer- 


54  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

\  ence.  We  have  to-day  the  same  mass  of  obscure, 
f  nameless  persons,  who  oppose  their  almost  unconquer- 
able inertia  to  every  movement  of  reform,  and  are  the 
'  drag  upon  all  vital  and  progressive  religion.  The 
great  causes  of  God  and  Humanity  are  not  defeated 
j  by  the  hot  assaults  of  the  Devil,  but  by  the  slow, 
\  crushing,  glacier-like  mass  of  thousands  and  thousands 
^  of  indifferent  nobodies.  God's  causes  are  never  des- 
troyed by  being  blown  up,  but  by  being  sat  upon.  It 
is  not  the  violent  and  anarchical  whom  we  have  to  fear 
in  the  war  for  human  progress,  but  the  slow,  the  staid, 
the  respectable.  And  the  danger  of  these  does  not  lie 
in  their  stupidity.  Notwithstanding  all  their  religious 
profession,  it  lies  in  their  real  scepticism.  Respecta- 
bility may  be  the  precipitate  of  unbelief.  Nay,  it  is 
that,  however  religious  its  mask,  wherever  it  is  mere 
comfort,  decorousness  and  conventionality;  where, 
though  it  would  abhor  articulately  confessing  that  God 
does  nothing,  it  virtually  means  so — says  so  (as 
Zephaniah  puts  it)  in  its  heart,  by  refusing  to  share 
manifest  opportunities  of  serving  Him,  and  covers  its 
sloth  and  its  fear  by  sneering  that  God  is  not  with 
the  great  crusades  for  freedom  and  purity  to  which 
it  is  summoned.  In  these  ways.  Respectability  is  the 
precipitate  which  unbelief  naturally  forms  in  the  selfish 
ease  and  stillness  of  so  much  of  our  middle-class  life. 
And  that  is  what  makes  mere  respectability  so 
dangerous.  Like  the  unshaken,  unstrained  wine  to 
which  the  prophet  compares  its  obscure  and  muddy 
comfort,  it  tends  to  decay.  To  some  extent  our 
respectable  classes  are  just  the  dregs  and  lees  of  our 
national  life ;  like  all  dregs,  they  are  subject  to  cor- 
ruption. A  great  sermon  could  be  preached  on  the 
putrescence  of  respectability — how  the  ignoble  comfort 


Zeph.  i.-ii.  3]     THE  PROPHET  AND   THE  REFORMERS      55 

of  our  respectable  classes  and  their  indifference  to  holy 
causes  lead  to  sensuality,  and  poison  the  very  institu- 
tions of  the  Home  and  the  Family,  on  which  they  pride 
themselves.  A  large  amount  of  the  licentiousness  of 
the  present  day  is  not  that  of  outlaw  and  disordered 
lives,  but  is  bred  from  the  settled  ease  and  indifference 
of  many  of  our  middle-class  families. 

It  is  perhaps  the  chief  part  of  the  sin  of  the  obscure 
units,  which  form  these  great  masses  of  indifference, 
that  they  think  they  escape  notice  and  cover  their 
individual  responsibility.  At  all  times  many  have 
sought  obscurity,  not  because  they  are  humble,  but 
because  they  are  slothful,  cowardly  or  indifferent. 
Obviously  it  is  this  temper  which  is  met  by  the  words, 
/  will  search  out  Jerusalem  with  lights.  None  of  us 
shall  escape  because  we  have  said,  "  I  will  go  with 
the  crowd,"  or  ''I  am  a  common  man  and  have  no 
right  to  thrust  myself  forward."  We  shall  be  followed 
and  judged,  each  of  us  for  his  and  her  personal  attitude 
to  the  great  movements  of  our  time.  These  things 
are  not  too  high  for  us  :  they  are  our  duty  ;  and  we 
cannot  escape  our  duty  by  slinking  into  the  shadow. 

For  all  this  wickedness  and  indifference  Zephaniah 
sees  prepared  the  Day  of  the  Lord — near,  hastening 
and  very  terrible.  It  sweeps  at  first  in  vague  deso- 
lation and  ruin  of  all  things,  but  then  takes  the  out- 
lines of  a  solemn  slaughter-feast  for  which  Jehovah 
has  consecrated  the  guests,  the  dim  unnamed  armies 
from  the  north.  Judah  shall  be  invaded,  and  they 
that  are  at  ease,  who  say  Jehovah  does  nothings  shall 
be  unsettled  and  routed.  One  vivid  trait  comes  in  like 
a  screech  upon  the  hearts  of  a  people  unaccustomed 
for  years  to  war.  Hark^  JehovaKs  Day!  cries  the 
prophet.    A  strong  man — there  ! — crying  bitterly.    From 


56  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

this  flash  upon  the  concrete,  he  returns  to  a  great  vague 
terror,  in  which  earthly  armies  merge  in  heavenly; 
battle,  siege,  storm  and  darkness  are  mingled,  and 
destruction  is  spread  abroad  upon  the  whole  earth. 
The  first  shades  of  Apocalypse  are  upon  us. 

We  may  now  take  the  full  text  of  this  strong  and 
significant  prophecy.  We  have  already  given  the 
title.  Textual  emendations  and  other  points  are 
explained  in  footnotes. 

/  will  sweepy  sweep  away  everything  from  the  face  of 
the  ground — oracle  of  Jehovah — sweep  man  and  beast, 
sweep  the  fowl  of  the  heaven  and  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and 
I  will  bring  to  ruin  ^  the  wicked  and  cut  off  the  men  of 
wickedness  from  the  ground — oracle  of  Jehovah.  And  I 
will  stretch  forth  My  hand  upon  Judah,  and  upon  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  ;  and  I  will  cut  off  from  this  place 
the  remnant  ^  of  the  Baal^  the  names  *  of  the  priestlings 

I  The  text  reads  the  ruins  {T\\y^'yO^  unless  we  prefer  with  Wei Ihausen 
DvEJ'SP,  the  stumbling-blocks,  i.e.  idols')  with  the  wicked^  and  I  will  cut 
offfnan  (LXX.  the  lawless)  from  off  the  face  of  the  ground.  Some  think 
the  clause  partly  too  redundant,  partly  too  specific,  to  be  original. 
But  suppose  we  read  iriPK^^ni  (cf.  Mai.  ii.  8,  Lam.  i.  14  and  passim : 
this  is  more  probable  than  Schwally's  *ri7^D,  op.  cit.,  p.  169),  and 
for  DIN  the  reading  which  probably  the  LXX.  had  before  them, 
V^2  DIN  (Job  XX.  29,  xxvii.  13,  Prov.  xi.  7  :  cf.  hv'hl  Dli<,  Prov.  vi.  12) 
or  ?^y  D"TN  (cf.  iii.  5),  we  get  the  rendering  adopted  in  the  translation 
above.  Some  think  the  whole  passage  an  intrusion,  yet  it  is  surely 
probable  that  the  earnest  moral  spirit  of  Zephaniah  would  aim  at  the 
wicked  from  the  very  outset  of  his  prophecy. 

-  LXX.  names,  held  by  some  to  be  the  original  reading  (Schwall}'', 
etc.).  In  that  case  the  phrase  might  have  some  allusion  to  the  well- 
known  promise  in  Deut.,  the  place  where  I  shall  set  My  name.  This  is 
more  natural  than  a  reference  to  Hosea  ii.  19,  which  is  quoted  by 
some, 

^  Some  Greek  codd.  take  Baal  as  fem.,  others  as  plur. 

*  So  LXX. 


Zeph.i.-ii.3]    THE  PROPHET  AND   THE    REFORMERS     57 

with  the  priestSy  and  them  ivho  upon  the  housetops  bow 
themselves  to  the  host  of  heaven^  and  them  who  .  .  }  swear  by 
their  Melech^  and  them  who  have  turned  from  following 
Jehovah^  and  ivho  do  not  seek  fehovah  nor  have  inquired 
of  Him. 

Silence  for  the  Lord  Jehovah  !  For  near  is  Jehovah's 
Day.  Jehovah  has  prepared  a  ^  slaughter^  He  has 
consecrated  His  guests. 

And  it  shall  be  in  Jehovah's  day  of  slaughter  that  I 
will  make  visitation  upon  the  princes  and  the  house  ^  of 
the  kingy  and  upon  all  who  array  themselves  in  foreign 
raiment;  and  I  will  make  visitation  upon  all  who  leap 
over  the  threshold^  on  that  day^  who  fill  their  lord's  house 
full  of  violence  and  fraud. 

And  on  that  day — oracle  of  Jehovah — there  shall  be  a 
noise  of  crying  from  the  Fishgate^  and  wailing  from 
the  Mishneh,^  and  great  havoc  on  the  Heights.     Howly 

*  Heb.  reads  and  them  who  bow  themselves,  who  swear,  by  Jehovah, 
So  LXX.  B  with  and  before  who  swear.  But  LXX.  A  omits  and. 
LXX.  Q  omits  them  who  bow  themselves.  Wellhausen  keeps  the 
clause  with  the  exception  of  who  swear,  and  so  reads  (to  the  end  of 
verse)  them  who  bow  themselves  to  Jehovah  and  swear  by  Milcom. 

-  Or  Molech  =  king.     LXX.  by  their  king.     Other  Greek  versions  : 
Moloch  and  Melchom.     Vulg.  Melchom. 
=*  LXX.  His. 

*  So  LXX.     Heb.  sons. 

^  Is  this  some  superstitious  rite  of  the  idol -worshippers  as  described 
in  the  case  of  Dagon,  i  Sam.  v.  5  ?  Or  is  it  a  phrase  for  breaking  into 
a  house,  and  so  parallel  to  the  second  clause  of  the  verse  ?  Most 
interpreters  prefer  the  latter.  The  idolatrous  rites  have  been  left 
behind.  Schwally  suggests  the  original  order  may  have  been  :  princes 
and  sons  of  the  king,  who  fill  their  lord^s  house  full  of  violence  and  deceit ; 
and  I  will  visit  upon  every  one  that  leapeth  over  the  threshold  on  that 
day,  and  upon  all  that  wear  foreign  raiment. 

^  The  Second  or  New  Town  :  cf  2  Kings  xxii.  14,  2  Chron.  xxxiv. 
22,  which  state  that  the  prophetess  Huldah  lived  there,  Cf.  Neh. 
iii.  9,  12,  xi.  9. 


58  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

O  dwellers  in  the  Mortar^  for  undone  are  all  the  merchant 
folk^  cut  off  are  all  the  money-dealers? 

And  in  that  time  it  shall  be  ^  that  I  will  search  Jerusalem 
with  lanterns^  and  make  visitation  upon  the  men  who  are 
become  stagnant  upon  their  lees,  who  in  their  hearts  say, 
Jehovah  doeth  no  good  and  doeth  no  evil}  Their  sub- 
stance shall  be  for  spoil,  and  their  houses  for  wasting.  .  .  } 

Near  is  the  great  Day  of  Jehovah,  near  and  very 
speedy.^  Hark,  the  Day  of  Jehovah  /  A  strong  man — 
there  I — crying  bitterly  ! 

A  day  of  wrath  is  that  Day !  ^  Day  of  siege  and 
blockade,  day  of  stress  and  distress,^  day  of  darkness  and 
murk,  day  of  cloud  and  heavy  mist,  day  of  the  war-horn 
and  battle-roar,  up  against  the  fenced  cities  and  against 
the  highest  turrets  !  And  I  will  beleaguer  men,  and 
they  shall  walk  like  the  blind,  for  they  have  sinned 
against  Jehovah;  and  poured  out  shall  their  blood  be 
like  dust,  and  the  flesh  of  them  like  dung.  Even  their 
silver,    even    their  gold  shall  not  avail    to   save   them 

'  The  hollow  probably  between  the  western  and  eastern  hills,  or 
the  upper  part  of  the  Tyropcean  (Orelli). 

'^  Yifth.  people  of  Canaan, 

^  7''DJ,  found  only  here,  from  ?DJ,  to  lift  up,  and  in  Isa.  xl.  15  to 
weigh.  Still  it  may  have  a  wider  meaning,  all  they  that  carry  money 
(Davidson). 

*  See  above,  p.  52. 

*  The  Hebrew  text  and  versions  here  add  :  And  they  shall  build 
houses  and  not  inhabit  (Greek  in  them),  and  plant  vineyards  and  not 
drink  the  wine  thereof.  But  the  phrase  is  a  common  one  (Deut. 
xxviii.  30  ;  Amos  v.  1 1 :  of.  Micah  vi.  15),  and  while  likely  to  have  been 
inserted  by  a  later  hand,  is  here  superfluous,  and  mars  the  firmness 
and  edge  of  Zephaniah's  threat. 

«  For  *inD  Wellhausen  reads  "nnOD,  pt.  Pi ;  but  "IHD  may  be  a 
verbal  adj. ;  compare  the  phrase  P7^  "IHD,  Isa.  viii.  I. 

^  Dies  Irae,  Dies  Ilia  ! 

^  Heb.  sho'ah  u-mesho'ah.  Lit.  ruin  (or  devastation)  and 
destruction. 


Zeph.  i.-ii.  3]     THE  PROPHET  AND   THE  REFORMERS     59 

in  the  day  of  JehovaKs  wrath^  and  in  the  fire  of  His 
zeal  shall  all  the  earth  be  devoured,  for  destruction,  yea^ 
sudden  collapse  shall  He  make  of  all  the  inhabitants  of 
the  earth. 

Upon  this  vision  of  absolute  doom  there  follows  ^ 
a  qualification  for  the  few  meek  and  righteous.  They 
may  be  hidden  on  the  day  of  the  Lord's  anger ;  but 
even  for  them  escape  is  only  a  possibility.  Note  the 
absence  of  all  mention  of  the  Divine  mercy  as  the  cause 
of  deliverance.  Zephaniah  has  no  gospel  of  that  kind. 
The  conditions  of  escape  are  sternly  ethical — meekness, 
the  doing  of  justice  and  righteousness.  So  austere  is 
our  prophet. 

.  .  .  /O  people  unabashed!'"  before  that  ye  become  as 

'  Some  take  this  first  clause  of  ver.  18  as  a  gloss.  See  Schwally 
in  loco. 

-  Read  PlX  for  ^N.     So  LXX.,  Syr.,  Wellhausen,  Schwally. 

^  In  vv.  1-3  of  chap,  ii.,  wrongly  separated  from  chap.  i. :  see 
Davidson. 

*  Heb.  W\>)  -It^^'tprin.  A.V.  Gather  yourselves  together,  yea, 
gather  together  (EJ^K^'lp  is  to  gather  straw  or  sticks— ci.  Arab,  kash,  to 
sweep  up — and  Nithp.  of  the  Aram,  is  to  assemble).  Orelli :  Crowd  and 
crouch  down.  Ewald  compares  Aram,  kash,  late  Heb.  K^^p,  to  grow 
old,  which  he  believes  originally  meant  to  be  withered,  grey.  Budde 
suggests  W^^T\r[  ItJ^iD,  but,  as  Davidson  remarks,  it  is  not  easy  to 
see  how  this,  if  once  extant,  was  altered  to  the  present  reading. 

^  P]DDp  is  usually  thought  to  have  as  its  root  meaning  to  be  pale 
or  colourless,  i.e.  either  white  or  black  {Journal  of  Phil,  14,  125), 
whence  P]p3,  silver  or  the  pale  metal:  hence  in  the  Qal  to  long  for, 
Job  xiv.  15,  Ps.  xvii.  12 ;  so  Ni,  Gen.  xxxi.  30,  Ps.  Ixxxiv.  3  ;  and  here 
to  be  ashamed.  But  the  derivation  of  the  name  for  silver  is  quite 
imaginary,  and  the  colour  of  shame  is  red  rather  than  white  :  cf.  the 
mod.  Arab,  saying,  "  They  are  a  people  that  cannot  blush ;  they  have 
no  blood  in  their  faces,"  i.e.  shameless.  Indeed  Schwally  says  (in  loco), 
"  Die  Bedeutung  fahl,  blass  ist  unerweislich."  Hence  (in  spite  of  the 
meanings  of  the  Aram.  P]D3  both  to  lose  colour  and  to  be  ashamed) 
a  derivation  for  the  Hebrew  is  more  probably  to  be  found  in  the 
root  kasaf,  to  cut  off.     The  Arab.  <     Q...C.  which  in  the  classic  tongue 


6o  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  drifting  chaff,  before  the  anger  of  Jehovah  come  upon 
you^  before  there  come  upon  you  the  day  of  JehovaKs 
wrath ;  ^  seek  Jehovah,  all  ye  meek  of  the  land  ivho  do 
His  ordinance,^  seek  righteousness^  seek  meekness,  per- 
adventure  ye  may  hide  yourselves  in  the  day  of  Jehovah's 
wrath. 

means  to  cut  a  thread  or  eclipse  the  sun,  is  in  colloquial  Arabic  to 
give  a  rebuff,  refuse  a  favour,  disappoint,  shame.  In  the  forms 
inkasaf  3.nd  itkasaf'\i  means  to  receive  a  rebuff,  be  disappointed,  then 
shy  or  timid,  and  ^«sm/ means  shame,  shyness  (as  well  as  eclipse  of 
the  sun).  See  Spiro's  Arabic-English  Vocabulary.  In  Ps.  Ixxxiv.  P|D2J 
is  evidently  used  of  unsatisfied  longing  (but  see  Cheyne),  which  is 
also  the  proper  meaning  of  the  parallel  H'PD  (cf  other  passages  where 
nPD  is  used  of  still  unfulfilled  or  rebuffed  hopes  :  Job  xix.  27,  Ps. 
Ixix.  4,  cxix.  81,  cxliii.  7).  So  in  Ps.  xvii.  4  P)D2  is  used  of  a  lion 
who  is  longing  for,  i.e.  still  disappointed  in,  his  prey,  and  so  in  Job 
xiv.  15. 

^  LXX.  -TTpo  Tov  yevecdai  v/xois  ws  avdos  (here  in  error  reading  |*2  for 
Y^)  irapaTTopevdfJLevov,  irpb  rod  eireKdeLV  e<f>  Vfxds  opyrjv  Kvpiov  (last 
clause  omitted  by  t^*^').  According  to  this  the  Hebrew  text,  which  is 
obviously  disarranged,  may  be  restored  to  "liy  1*^5  'Vnri'N?   D^02 

-  This  clause  Wellhausen  deletes.    Cf.  Hexaplar  Syriac  translation. 
^  LXX.  take  this  also  as  imperative,  do  jiidgiuent,  and  so  co-ordinate 
to  the  other  clauses. 


CHAPTER    IV 

NINIVE     DELENDA 
Zephaniah  ii.  4-15 

THERE  now  come,  a  series  of  oracles  on  foreign 
nations,  connected  with  the  previous  prophecy 
by  the  conjunction  for,  and  detaihng  the  worldwide 
judgment  which  it  had  proclaimed.  But  though  dated 
from  the  same  period  as  that  prophecy,  ciixa  626, 
these  oracles  are  best  treated  by  themselves.^ 

These  oracles  originally  formed  one  passage  in  the 
well-known  Qinah  or  elegiac  measure ;  but  this  has 
suffered  sadly  both  by  dilapidation  and  rebuilding. 
How  mangled  the  text  is  may  be  seen  especially 
from  vv.  6  and  14,  where  the  Greek  gives  us  some 
help  in  restoring  it.  The  verses  (8-1 1)  upon  Moab 
and  Ammon  cannot  be  reduced  to  the  metre  which 
both  precedes  and  follows  them.  Probably,  there- 
fore, they  are  a  later  addition :  nor  did  Moab  and 
Ammon  He  upon  the  way  of  the  Scythians,  who  are 
presumably  the  invaders  pictured  by  the  prophet.^ 

The  poem  begins  with   Philistia  and  the  sea-coast, 

'  See  above,  pp.  41  flf. 

^  Some,  however,  think  the  prophet  is  speaking  in  prospect  of  the 
Chaldean  invasion  of  a  few  years  later.  This  is  not  so  likely,  because 
he  pictures  the  overthrow  of  Niniveh  as  subsequent  to  the  invasion 
of  Philistia,  while  the  Chaldeans  accomplished  the  latter  only  after 
Niniveh  had  fallen. 

61 


62  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  very  path  of  the  Scythian  raid.^  Evidently  the 
latter  is  imminent,  the  Philistine  cities  are  shortly  to  be 
taken  and  the  whole  land  reduced  to  grass.  Across 
the  emptied  strip  the  long  hope  of  Israel  springs  sea- 
ward ;  but — mark ! — not  yet  with  a  vision  of  the  isles 
beyond.  The  prophet  is  satisfied  with  reaching  the 
edge  of  the  Promised  Land:  by  the  sea  shall  they  feed '^ 
their  flocks. 

For  Gaza  forsaken  shall  be, 

Ashklon  a  desert. 
Ashdod — by  noon  shall  they  rout  her, 

And  Ekron  be  torn  up  !  ^ 

Ah!  woe,  dwellers  of  the  sea-shore, 

Folk  of  Kerethim. 
The  word  of  Jehovah  against  thee,  Kena^an^ 

Land  of  the  Philistines  I 

^  According  to  Herodotus. 

2  Ver.  7,  LXX. 

^  The  measure,  as  said  above,  is  elegiac :  alternate  lines  long 
with  a  rising,  and  short  with  a  falling,  cadence.  There  is  a 
play  upon  the  names,  at  least  on  the  first  and  last — "  Gazzah "  or 
"'Azzah  'Azubah  " — which  in  English  we  might  reproduce  by  the 
use  of  Spenser's  word  for  "  dreary  " :  For  Gaza  ghastful  shall  be. 
"'Ekron  teaker."  LXX.  'AKKapup  eKpi^ujdrjaeTai  (B),  iKpLcp-^aerai  (A). 
In  the  second  line  we  have  a  slighter  assonance,  'Ashkelon  lishemamah. 
In  the  third  theverb  is  n-l^."}^^;  Bacher  (Z.A.T.IV.,  1891,  185  ff.) 
points  out  that  ^"li  is  not  used  of  cities,  but  of  their  populations  or 
of  individual  men,  and  suggests  (from  Abulwalid)  HIJi'T''',  shallpossess 
her,  as  "  a  plausible  emendation."  Schwally  {ibid.,  260)  prefers  to 
alter  to  T\W'y^),  with  the  remark  that  this  is  not  only  a  good  parallel 
to  ")prn,  but  suits  the  LXX.  e/cpt^Tjtrerat. — On  the  expression  by  noon 
see  Davidson,  N.  H.  and  Z.,  Appendix,  Note  2,  where  he  quotes  a 
parallel  expression,  in  the  Senjerli  inscription,  of  Asarhaddon  :  that 
he  took  Memphis  by  midday  or  in  half  a  day  (Schrader).  This  suits 
the  use  of  the  phrase  in  Jer.  xv.  8,  where  it  is  parallel  to  suddenly. 

*  Canaan  omitted  by  Wellhausen,  who  reads  "fPi;  for  DDvV.  But 
as  the  metre  requires  a  larger  number  of  syllables  in  the  first  line  of 


Zeph.ii.4-i5]  NINIVE  DELENDA  63 

And  I  destroy  thee  to  the  last  inhabitants^ 
And  Kereth  shall  become  shepherds^  cots^ 

And  folds  for  flocks. 
And  the  coast^  for  the  remnant  ofJudaKs  house; 

By  the  sea  *  shall  they  feed. 
In  Ashkelon^s  houses  at  even  shall  they  couch  ; 

For  fehovah  their  God  shall  visit  them^ 
And  turn  their  captivity.^ 

There  comes  now  an  oracle  upon  Moab  and  Ammon 
(vv.  8-1 1 ).  As  already  .said,  it  is  not  in  the  elegiac 
measure  which  precedes  and  follows  it,  while  other 
features  cast  a  doubt  upon  its  authenticity.  Like  other 
oracles  on  the  same  peoples,  this  denounces  the  loud- 
mouthed arrogance  of  the  sons  of  Moab  and  Ammon. 

each  couplet  than  in  the  second,  Kena'an  should  probably  remain. 
The  difficulty  is  the  use  of  Canaan  as  synonymous  with  Land  of 
the  Philistmes.  Nowhere  else  in  the  Old  Testament  is  it  expressly 
applied  to  the  coast  south  of  Carmel,  though  it  is  so  used  in  the 
Egyptian  inscriptions,  and  even  in  the  Old  Testament  in  a  sense 
which  covers  this  as  well  as  other  lowlying  parts  of  Palestine. 

'  An  odd  long  line,  either  the  remains  of  two,  or  perhaps  we  should 
take  the  two  previous  lines  as  one,  omitting  Canaan. 

"^  So  LXX.  :  Hebrew  text  and  the  sea-coast  shall  become  dwellings, 
cots  (n"l3)  of  shepherds.  But  the  pointing  and  meaning  of  mD  are 
both  conjectural,  and  the  sea-coast  has  probably  fallen  by  mistake 
into  this  verse  from  the  next.  On  Kereth  and  Kerethim  as  names 
for  Philistia  and  the  Philistines  see  Hist.  Geog.,  p.  171. 

^  LXX.  adds  of  the  sea.  So  Wellhausen,  but  unnecessarily  and  im- 
probably for  phonetic  reasons,  as  sea  has  to  be  read  in  the  next  line. 

^  So  Wellhausen,  reading  for  nrxhv,    D^n'^i;. 

^  Some  words  must  have  fallen  out,  for  first  a  short  line  is  required 
here  by  the  metre,  and  second  the  LXX.  have  some  additional  words, 
which,  however,  give  us  no  help  to  what  the  lost  line  was  :  dTro 
TrpoaJjirov  viQv  'loijda. 

*  As  stated  above,  there  is  no  conclusive  reason  against  the  pre- 
exilic  date  of  this  expression. 


64  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

I  have  heard^  the  reviling  of  Moab  and  the  insults  of 
the  sons  of  Ainmon,  who  have  reviled  My  people  and 
vaunted  themselves  upon  their'""  border.  Wherefore  as 
I  live,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  God  of  Israel,  Moab  shall 
become  as  Sodom,  and  Ammon's  sons  as  Gomorrah — the 
possession  ^  of  nettles,  and  saltpits,^  and  a  desolation  for 
ever;  the  remnant  of  My  people  shall  spoil  them,  and 
the  rest  of  My  nation  possess  them.  This  to  them  for 
their  arrogance,  because  they  reviled,  and  vaunted  them- 
selves against,  the  people  of'""  Jehovah  of  Hosts.  Jehovah 
showeth  Himself  terrible^  against  them,  for  He  hath 
made  lean  ^  all  gods  of  earth,  that  all  the  coasts  of  the 
nations  may  worship  Him,  every  man  from  his  own  place.^ 

The  next  oracle  is  a  very  short  one  (ver.  12)  upon 
Egypt,  which  after  its  long  subjection  to  Ethiopia 
dynasties  is  called,  not  Misraim,  but  Kush,  or  Ethiopia. 
The  verse  follows  on  naturally  to  ver.  7,  but  is  not 
reducible  to  the  elegiac  measure. 

Also  ye,  O  Kushites,  are  the  slain  of  My  sword. ^ 

'  Cf.  Isa.  xvi.  6. 

-  LXX.  My. 

^  Doubtful  word,  not  occurring  elsewhere. 

'  Heb.  singular. 

^  LXX.  omits  the  people  of. 

^  LXX.  niaketh  Himself  manifest,  HXni  for  J^'Tll 

"'  dira^  \eybfievov.  The  passive  of  the  verb  means  to  grow  lean 
(Isa.  xvii.    4). 

^  DIpD  has  probably  here  the  sense  which  it  has  in  a  few  other 
passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  in  Arabic,  of  sacred  place. 

Many  will  share  Schwally's  doubts  (p.  192)  about  the  authenticity 
of  ver.  II ;  nor,  as  Wellhausen  points  out,  does  its  prediction  of  the 
conversion  of  the  heathen  agree  with  ver.  12,  which  devotes  them 
to  destruction.     Ver.  12  follows  naturally  on  to  ver.  7. 

^  Wellhausen  reads  His  sword,  to  agree  with  the  next  verse. 
Perhaps  ^3")n  is  an  abbreviation  for  nilT'  3'in. 


Zeph.ii.4-i5]  NINIVE  DELENDA  65 

The  elegiac  measure  is  now  renewed  ^  in  an  oracle 
against  Assyria,  the  climax  and  front  of  heathendom 
(vv.  13-15).  It  must  have  been  written  before  608: 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  is  Zephaniah's. 

And  may  He  stretch  out  His  hand  against  the  Norths 

And  destroy  Asshur; 
And  may  He  turn  Niniveh  to  desolation y 

Dry  as  the  desert. 
And  herds  shall  couch  in  her  midst ^ 

Every  beast  of  .  .  .  } 
Yea,  pelican  and  bittern^  shall  roost  on  the  capitals; 
The  owl  shall  hoot  in  the  window, 

The  raven  on  the  doorstep. 

4 

Such  is  the  City,  the  Jubilant, 
She  that  sitteth  at  ease, 


1  See  Budde,  Z.A.T.W.,  1882,  25. 

"^  Heb.  reads  a  nation,  and  Wellhausen  translates  etn  buntes 
Gemisch  von  Volk,     LXX,  beasts  of  the  earth. 

*  nt^p,  a  water-bird  according  to  Deut.  xiv.  17,  Lev.  xi.  18,  mostly 
taken  SiS  pelican;  so  R.V.  A,V.  cormorant.  *12|?  has  usually  been 
taken  from  nQp,  to  draw  together,  therefore  hedgehog  or  porcupine. 
But  the  other  animals  mentioned  here  are  birds,  and  it  is  birds  which 
would  naturally  roost  on  capitals.  Therefore  bittern  is  the  better 
rendering  (Hitzig,  Cheyne).  The  name  is  onomatopoeic.  Cf.  Eng. 
butter-dump.     LXX.  translates  chameleons  and  hedgehogs. 

*  Heb. :  a  voice  shall  sing  in  the  window,  desolation  on  the  threshold, 
for  He  shall  uncover  the  cedar-work.     LXX.  /cat  drjpia  (pojurjaec  iv  tois 

diopiyiuLaaiv  uvttjs,  KopaKes  eu  Toh  irvKQxnv  avrris,  Sioxi  /ceSpos  to 
avaar-nixa  avTTJs  :  Wild  beasts  shall  sound  in  her  excavations,  ravens 
in  her  porches,  because  (the)  cedar  is  her  height.  For  ?)p,  voice, 
Wellhausen  reads  DD,  owl,  and  with  the  LXX.  1"IV,  rave7t,  for 
2in,  desolation.  The  last  two  words  are  left  untranslated  above. 
npi<  occurs  only  here  and  is  usually  taken  to  mean  cedar-work; 
but  it  might  be  pointed  her  cedar.  Hli;,  he,  or  one,  has  stripped  the 
cedar-work. 

VOL.  II,  5 


66  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

She  that  saith  in  her  heart,  I  am 

And  there  is  none  else  ! 
How  hath  she  become  desolation  ! 

A  lair  of  beasts. 
Every  one  passing  by  her  hisses, 

Shakes  his  hand. 

The  essence  of  these  oracles  is  their  clear  confidence 
in  the  fall  of  Niniveh.  From  652,  when  Egypt  revolted 
from  Assyria,  and,  Assurbanipal  notwithstanding,  began 
to  push  northward,  men  must  have  felt,  throughout 
all  Western  Asia,  that  the  great  empire  upon  the 
Tigris  was  beginning  to  totter.  This  feeling  was 
strengthened  by  the  Scythian  invasion,  and  after  625 
it  became  a  moral  certainty  that  Niniveh  would  fall  ^ — 
which  happened  in  607-6.  These  are  the  feelings,  625 
to  608,  which  Zephaniah's  oracles  reflect.  We  can 
hardly  over-estimate  what  they  meant.  Not  a  man 
was  then  alive  who  had  ever  known  anything  else 
than  the  greatness  and  the  glory  of  Assyria.  It  was 
two  hundred  and  thirty  years  since  Israel  first  felt 
the  weight  of  her  arms.^  It  was  more  than  a  hundred 
since  her  hosts  had  swept  through  Palestine,^  and  for 
at  least  fifty  her  supremacy  had  been  accepted  by 
Judah.  Now  the  colossus  began  to  totter.  As  she 
had  menaced,  so  she  was  menaced.  The  ruins  with 
which  for  nigh  three  centuries  she  had  strewn  Western 
Asia — to  these  were  to  be  reduced  her  own  impregnable 
and  ancient  glory.     It  was  the  close  of  an  epoch. 

»  See  above,  pp.  17,  18.  ^  At  the  battle  of  Karkar,  854. 

=»  Under  Tiglath-Pileser  in  734. 


CHAPTER    V 

so   AS   BY  FIRE 

Zephaniah  iii 

THE  third  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Zephaniah 
consists  ^  of  two  sections,  of  which  only  the  first, 
vv.  I- 1 3,  is  a  genuine  work  of  the  prophet;  while 
the  second,  vv.  14-20,  is  a  later  epilogue  such  as 
we  found  added  to  the  genuine  prophecies  of  Amos. 
It  is  written  in  the  large  hope  and  brilliant  temper  of 
the  Second  Isaiah,  saying  no  word  of  Judah's  sin  or 
judgment,  but  predicting  her  triumphant  deliverance 
out  of  all  her  afflictions. 

In  a  second  address  to  his  City  (vv.  1-13)  Zeph- 
aniah strikes  the  same  notes  as  he  did  in  his  first. 
He  spares  the  king,  but  denounces  the  ruling  and 
teaching  classes.  Jerusalem's  princes  are  lions,  her 
judges  wolves,  her  prophets  braggarts,  her  priests 
pervert  the  law,  her  wicked  have  no  shame.  He 
repeats  the  proclamation  of  a  universal  doom.  But  the 
time  is  perhaps  later.  Judah  has  disregarded  the  many 
threats.  She  will  not  accept  the  Lord's  discipline ; 
and  while  in  chap.  i. — ii.  3  Zephaniah  had  said  that  the 
meek  and  righteous  might  escape  the  doom,  he  now 
emphatically  affirms  that  all  proud  and  impenitent  men 
shall    be    removed    from    Jerusalem,    and    a    humble 

'  See  above,  pp.  43-45. 
67 


68  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

people  be  left  to  her,  righteous  and  secure.  There 
is  the  same  moral  earnestness  as  before,  the  same 
absence  of  all  other  elements  of  prophecy  than  the 
ethical.  Before  we  ask  the  reason  and  emphasise  the 
beauty  of  this  austere  gospel,  let  us  see  the  exact 
words  of  the  address.  There  are  the  usual  marks  of 
poetic  diction  in  it — elliptic  phrases,  the  frequent  absence 
of  the  definite  article,  archaic  forms  and  an  order  of  the 
syntax  different  from  that  which  obtains  in  prose. 
But  the  measure  is  difficult  to  determine,  and  must  be 
printed  as  prose.  The  echo  of  the  elegiac  rhythm  in 
the  opening  is  more  apparent  than  real :  it  is  not 
sustained  beyond  the  first  verse.  Verses  9  and  10 
are  relegated  to  a  footnote,  as  very  probably  an 
intrusion,  and  disturbance  of  the  argument. 

Woe,  rebel  and  unclean^  city  of  oppression !  ^  She 
listens  to  no  voice^  she  accepts  no  discipline,  in  Jehovah 
she  trusts  not,  nor  has  drawn  near  to  her  God. 

Her  princes  in  her  midst  are  roaring  lions;  her 
judges  evening  wolves^  they  .  .  .  ^  not  till  morning;  her 

1  Heb.  the  city  the  oppressor.  The  two  participles  in  the  first 
clause  are  not  predicates  to  the  noun  and  adjective  of  the  second 
(Schwally),  but  vocatives,  though  without  the  article,  after  MH. 

^  LXX.  wolves  of  Arabia. 

^  The  verb  left  untranslated,  ID'li,  is  quite  uncertain  in  meaning. 
Din  is  a  root  common  to  the  Semitic  languages  and  seems  to  mean 
originally  to  cut  off,  while  the  noun  D^lll  is  a  bone.  In  Num.  xxiv.  8 
the  Piel  of  the  verb  used  with  another  word  for  bone  means  to  gnaw, 
munch.  (The  only  other  passage  where  it  is  used,  Ezek.  xxiii.  34,  is 
corrupt.)  So  some  take  it  here  :  they  do  not  gnaw  bones  till  mornings 
i.e.  devour  all  at  once  ;  but  this  is  awkward,  and  Schwally  (198)  has 
proposed  to  omit  the  negative,  they  do  gnaw  bones  till  morning,  yet  in 
that  case  surely  the  impf.  and  not  the  perf.  tense  would  have  been 
used.  The  LXX.  render  they  do  not  leave  over,  and  it  has  been 
attempted,  though  inconclusively,  to  derive  this  meaning  from  that  of 


Zeph.  iii.]  SO  AS  BY  FIRE  69 

prophets  are  braggarts  and  traitors;  her  priests  have 
profaned  what  is  holy  and  done  violence  to  the  Law} 
Jehovah  is  righteous  in  the  midst  of  her^  He  does  no 
wrong.  Morning  by  morning  He  brings  His  judg- 
ment to  light :  He  does  not  let  Himself  fail  '^ — but  the 
wicked  man  knows  no  shame.  I  have  cut  off  nations, 
their  turrets  are  ruined;  I  have  laid  waste  their  broad 
streets,  till  no  one  passes  upon  them;  destroyed  are 
their  cities,  without  a  man,  without  a  dweller?  I  said. 
Surely  she  will  fear  Me,  she  will  accept  punishment,^ 
and  all  that  I  have  visited  upon  her^  shall  never 
vanish  from  her  eyes?  But  only  the  more  zealously 
have  they  corrupted  all  their  doings? 

Wherefore  wait  ye  for  Me — oracle  of  Jehovah — wait 
for  the  day  of  My  rising  to  testify,  for  'tis  My  fixed 
purpose^  to  sweep  nations  together,  to  collect  kingdoms^ 
to  pour  upon  them  .  .  .^  all  the  heat  of  My  wrath — 

cutting  off,  i.e.  laying  aside  (the  Arabic  Form  II.  means,  however,  to 
leave  behind).  Another  line  of  meaning  perhaps  promises  more.  In 
Aram,  the  verb  means  to  be  the  cause  of  anything,  to  bring  about,  and 
perhaps  contains  the  idea  of  deciding  (Levy  sub  voce  compares  /cptVw, 
cerno) ;  in  Arab,  it  means,  among  other  things,  to  commit  a  crime,  be 
guilty,  but  in  mod.  Arabic  to  fine.  Now  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  here 
the  expression  is  used  oi judges,  and  it  may  be  there  is  an  intentional 
play  upon  the  double  possibility  of  meaning  in  the  root. 

1  Ezek.  xxii.  26  :  Her  priests  have  done  violence  to  My  Law  and 
have  profaned  My  holy  things  ;  they  have  put  no  difference  between  the 
holy  and  profane,  between  the  clean  and  the  unclean.     Cf.  Jer.  ii.  8. 

^  Schwally  by  altering  the  accents :  morning  by  morning  He  giveth 
forth  His  judgment :  no  day  does  He  fail. 

^  On  this  ver.  6  see  above,  p.  44.     It  is  doubtful. 

*  Or  discipline. 

^  Wellhausen :  that  which  I  have  commanded  her.  Cf.  Job 
xxxvi.  23 ;   2  Chron.  xxxvi.  23  ;   Ezra  i.  2. 

6  So  LXX.,  reading  H^J^rKD  for  the  Heb.  Pl^fyp,  her  dwelling. 

''  A  frequent  phrase  of  Jeremiah's. 

«  ^DQK^D,  decree,  ordinance,  decision. 

^  Heb.  My  anger.     LXX.  omits. 


70  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

yeay  with  the  fire  of  My  jealousy  shall  the  whole  earth 
be  consumed} 

In  that  day  thou  shall  not  be  ashamed''-'  of  all  thy 
deedsy  by  which  thou  hast  rebelled  against  Me:  for 
then  will  I  turn  out  of  the  midst  of  thee  all  who 
exult  with  that  arrogance  of  thine^  and  thou  wilt  not 
again  vaunt  thyself  upon  the  Mount  of  My  Holiness. 
But  I  will  leave  in  thy  midst  a  people  humble  and  poor^ 
and  they  shall  trust  in  the  name  of  Jehovah.  The 
Remnant  of  Israel  shall  do  no  evil,  and  shall  not  speak 
falsehood,  and  no  fraud  shall  be  found  in  their  mouthy 
but  they  shall  pasture  and  they  shall  couch,  with  none 
to  make  them  afraid. 

Such  is  the  simple  and  austere  gospel  of  Zephaniah. 

'  That  is  to  say,  the  prophet  returns  to  that  general  judgment  of 
the  whole  earth,  with  which  in  his  first  discourse  he  had  already 
threatened  Judah.  He  threatens  her  with  it  again  in  this  eighth 
verse,  because,  as  he  has  said  in  the  preceding  ones,  all  other 
warnings  have  failed.  The  eighth  verse  therefore  follows  naturally 
upon  the  seventh,  just  as  naturally  as  in  Amos  iv.  ver.  12,  intro- 
duced by  the  same  |5<  as  here,  follows  its  predecessors.  The  next 
two  verses  of  the  text,  however,  describe  an  opposite  result :  instead 
of  the  destruction  of  the  heathen,  they  picture  their  conversion,  and  it 
is  only  in  the  eleventh  verse  that  we  return  to  the  main  subject  of 
the  passage,  Judah  herself,  who  is  represented  (in  harmony  with  the 
close  of  Zephaniah's  first  discourse)  as  reduced  to  a  righteous  and 
pious  remnant.  Vv.  9  and  10  are  therefore  obviously  a  later  insertion, 
and  we  pass  to  the  eleventh  verse.  Vv.  9  and  10  :  For  then  (this  has 
no  meaning  after  ver.  8)  will  I  give  to  the  peoples  a  pure  lip  (elliptic 
phrase  :  turn  to  the  peoples  a  pure  lip — i.e.  turn  their  evil  lip  into  a 
pure  lip :  pure  =  picked  out,  select,  excellent,  cf.  Isa.  xlix.  2),  that  they 
may  all  of  them  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord,  that  they  may  serve  Him 
with  one  consent  (Heb.  shoulder,  hX.X-.yoke).  From  beyond  the  rivers 
of  Ethiopia — there  follows  a  very  obscure  phrase,  ''V'"12"'^5  '^'^^V.,  sup- 
pliants (?)  of  the  daughter  of  My  dispersed,  but  Ewald  of  the  daughter 
of  Phut — they  shall  bring  Mine  offering. 

^  Wellhausen  despair.        ^  Heb.  the  jubilant  ones  of  thtne  arrogance. 


Zeph.iii.]  SO  AS  BY  FIRE  71 

It  is  not  to  be  overlooked  amid  the  lavish  and  gorgeous 
promises  which  other  .  prophets  have  poured  around 
it,  and  by  ourselves,  too,  it  is  needed  in  our  often 
unscrupulous  enjoyment  of  the  riches  of  grace  that 
are  in  Christ  Jesus.  A  thorough  purgation,  the 
removal  of  the  wicked,  the  sparing  of  the  honest  and 
the  meek ;  insistence  only  upon  the  rudiments  of 
morality  and  religion ;  faith  in  its  simplest  form  of  trust 
in  a  righteous  God,  and  character  in  its  basal  elements 
of  meekness  and  truth, — these  and  these  alone  survive 
the  judgment.  Why  does  Zephaniah  never  talk  of 
the  Love  of  God,  of  the  Divine  Patience,  of  the  Grace 
that  has  spared  and  will  spare  wicked  hearts  if  only 
it  can  touch  them  to  penitence  ?  Why  has  he  no  call 
to  repent,  no  appeal  to  the  wicked  to  turn  from 
the  evil  of  their  ways?  We  have  already  seen  part 
of  the  answer.  Zephaniah  stands  too  near  to  judg- 
ment and  the  last  things.  Character  is  fixed,  the 
time  for  pleading  is  past;  there  remains  only  the 
separation  of  bad  men  from  good.  It  is  the  same 
standpoint  (at  least  ethically)  as  that  of  Christ's  visions 
of  the  Judgment.  Perhaps  also  an  austere  gospel  was 
required  by  the  fashionable  temper  of  the  day.  The 
generation  was  loud  and  arrogant ;  it  gilded  the  future 
to  excess,  and  knew  no  shame.^  The  true  prophet 
was  forced  to  reticence  ;  he  must  make  his  age  feel 
the  desperate  earnestness  of  life,  and  that  salvation  is 
by  fire.  For  the  gorgeous  future  of  its  unsanctified 
hopes  he  must  give  it  this  severe,  almost  mean,  picture 
of  a  poor  and  humble  folk,  hardly  saved  but  at  last  at 
peace. 

The  permanent  value  of  such  a  message  is  proved 

1  See  vv.  4,  5,  II. 


72  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

by  the  thirst  which  we  feel  even  to-day  for  the  clear, 
cold  water  of  its  simple  promises.  Where  a  glaring 
optimism  prevails,  and  the  future  is  preached  with  a 
loud  assurance,  where  many  find  their  only  reli- 
gious enthusiasm  in  the  resurrection  of  mediaeval  ritual 
or  the  singing  of  stirring  and  gorgeous  hymns  of 
second-hand  imagery,  how  needful  to  be  recalled  to 
the  earnestness  and  severity  of  life,  to  the  simplicity 
of  the  conditions  of  salvation,  and  to  their  ethical,  not 
emotional,  character !  Where  sensationalism  has  so 
invaded  religion,  how  good  to  hear  the  sober  insistence 
upon  God's  daily  commonplaces — morning  by  morning 
He  bringeih  forth  His  judgment  to  light — and  to  know 
that  the  acceptance  of  discipHne  is  what  prevails  with 
Him.  Where  national  reform  is  vaunted  and  the  pro- 
gress of  education,  how  well  to  go  back  to  a  prophet 
who  ignored  all  the  great  reforms  of  his  day  that  he 
might  impress  his  people  with  the  indispensableness 
of  humility  and  faith.  Where  Churches  have  such 
large  ambitions  for  themselves,  how  necessary  to  hear 
that  the  future  is  destined  for  a  poor  folk,  the  meek 
and  the  honest.  Where  men  boast  that  their  religion — 
Bible,  Creed  or  Church — has  undertaken  to  save  them, 
vaunting  themselves  on  the  Mount  of  My  Holiness,  how 
needful  to  hear  salvation  placed  upon  character  and  a 
very  simple  trust  in  God. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  is  any  one  in  despair  at  the 
darkness  and  cruelty  of  this  life,  let  him  hear  how 
Zephaniah  proclaims  that,  though  all  else  be  fraud,  the 
Lord  is  righteous  in  the  midst  of  us^  He  doth  not  let 
Himself  fail,  that  the  resigned  heart  and  the  humble, 
the  just  and  the  pure  heart,  is  imperishable,  and  in  the 
end  there  is  at  least  peace. 


Zeph.iii.  I4-20]  SO  AS  BY  FIRE  73 

Epilogue. 

Verses  14-20, 

Zephaniah's  prophecy  was  fulfilled.  The  Day  of  the 
Lord  came,  and  the  people  met  their  judgment.  The 
Remnant  survived — a  folk  poor  and  humble.  To 
them,  in  the  new  estate  and  temper  of  their  life,  came 
a  new  song  from  God — perhaps  it  was  nearly  a  hundred 
years  after  Zephaniah  had  spoken — and  they  added  it 
to  his  prophecies.  It  came  in  with  wonderful  fitness,  for 
it  was  the  song  of  the  redeemed,  whom  he  had  foreseen, 
and  it  tuned  his  book,  severe  and  simple,  to  the  full 
harmony  of  prophecy,  so  that  his  book  might  take 
a  place  in  the  great  choir  of  Israel — the  diapason  of 
that  full  salvation  which  no  one  man,  but  only  the 
experience  of  centuries,  could  achieve. 

Sing  out,  O  daughter  of  Zion  !  shout  aloud,  O  Israel ! 
Rejoice  and  be  jubilant  with  all  thy  ^  heart,  daughter  of 
Jerusalem  !  Jehovah  hath  set  aside  thy  judgments^  He 
hath  turned  thy  foes.  King  of  Israel,  Jehovah  is  in  thy 
midst;  thou  shall  not  see  ^  evil  any  more. 

In  that  day  it  shall  be  said  to  Jerusalem^  Fear  not.  O 
Zion,  let  not  thy  hands  droop  !  Jehovah,  thy  God,  in  the 
midst  of  thee  is  mighty ;  *  He  will  save,  He  will  rejoice 
over  thee  with  joy.  He  will  make  new  ^  His  love,  He  will 
exult  over  thee  with  singing. 

'  Heb.  the. 

2  -q^^S^'p,  But  Wellhausen  reads  Tj^DSitJ'P,  thine  adversaries: 
cf.  Job  ix.  15. 

3  Reading  '•N"in  (with  LXX.,  Wellhausen  and  Schwally)  for  ''^5T];l 
of  the  Hebrew  text,  fear. 

*  Lit.  hero,  mighty  man. 

*  Heb.  will  be  silent  in,  ^'^yyi^  but  not  in  harmony  with  the  next 
clause.  LXX.  and  Syr.  render  will  make  new,  which  translates  K^nfl""^ 
a  form  that  does  not  elsewhere  occur,  though  that  is  no  objection  to 


74  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

The  scattered  of  thy  congregation  ^  have  I  gathered — 
thine"^  are  they,  .  .  .^  reproach  upon  her.  Behold,  I  am  about 
to  do  all  for  thy  sake  at  that  time,^  and  I  will  rescue  the 
lame  and  the  outcast  will  I  bring  in^  and  I  will  make  them 
for  renown  and  fame  whose  shame  is  in  the  whole  earth.^ 
In  that  time  I  will  bring  you  in^  even  in  the  time  that 
I  gather  you^  For  I  will  set  you  for  fame  and  renown 
among  all  the  peoples  of  the  earth,  when  I  turn  again 
your  captivity  before  your  eyes,  saith  Jehovah^ 

finding  it  in  Zephaniah,  or  tJ^lin^.  Hitzig  :  He  makes  new  things  in 
His  love.  Buhl :  He  renews  His  love.  Schwally  suggests  mn'',  He 
rejoices  in  His  love. 

'  LXX.  hi  the  days  of  thy  festival,  which  it  takes  with  the  previous 
verse.  The  Heb.  construction  is  ungrammatical,  though  not  unpre- 
cedented— the  construct  state  before  a  preposition.  Besides  ''J13  is 
obscure  in  meaning.  It  is  a  Ni.  pt.  for  11313  from  H  J**,  to  be  sad :  cf.  the 
Pi.  in  Lam.  iii.  33.  But  the  Hiphil  n3in  in  2  Sam.  xx.  13,  followed 
(as  here)  by  |D,  means  to  thrust  away  from,  and"  that  is  probably  the 
sense  here. 

^  LXX.  thine  oppressed  msicc.  governed  by  the  preceding  verb,  which 
in  LXX.  begins  the  verse. 

^  The  Heb.,  HNIE^D^  burden  of,  is  unintelligible.  Wellhausen  pro- 
poses Dn''i?i(  riNc^p. 

*  This  rendering  is  only  a  venture  in  the  almost  impossible  task  of 
restoring  the  text  of  the  clause.  As  it  stands  the  Heb.  runs,  Behold,  I 
am  about  to  do,  or  deal,  with  thine  oppressors  (which  Hitzig  and  Ewald 
accept).  Schwally  points  "?])3yp  (active)  as  a  passive,  "^j.^ll^P,  thine 
oppressed.  LXX.  has  t'Soi)  e7cb  Trotw  ev  <Jol  'iveKev  <tov,  i.e.  it  read  "^riK 
Uprp?.  Following  its  suggestion  we  might  read  "Sl^rp?  /STlN^^and 
so  get  the  above  translation.  *  Micah  iv.  6. 

^  This  rendering  (Ewald's)  is  doubtful.  The  verse  concludes  with 
in  the  whole  earth  their  shame.  But  DPICJ'B  may  be  a  gloss.  LXX. 
take  it  as  a  verb  with  the  next  verse. 

'  LXX.  do  good  toyou]  perhaps  n''DN  for  J<^3N. 

^  So  Heb.  literally,  but  the  construction  is  very  awkward.  Perhaps 
we  should  read  in  that  time  I  will  gather  you. 

^  Before  your  eyes,  i.e.  in  your  lifetime.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
ver.  20  is  original  to  the  passage.  For  it  is  simply  a  variation  on 
ver.  19,  and  it  has  more  than  one  impossible  reading:  see  previous 
note,  and  for  DD^nUK'  read  DDnUK>. 


NAHUM 


75 


IVoe  to  the  City  of  Blood, 

All  of  her  guile,  robbery-full,  ceaseless  rapine  ! 

Hark  the  whip, 

And  the  rumbling  of  wheels  ! 

Horses  at  the  gallop, 

And  the  rattling  dance  of  the  chariot ! 

Cavalry  at  the  charge, 

Flash  of  sabres,  and  lightning  of  lances  ! 


16 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  BOOK  OF  NAHUM 

THE  Book  of  Nahum  consists  of  a  double  title  and 
three  odes.  The  title  runs  Oracle  of  Niniveh  : 
Book  of  the  Vision  of  Nahum  the  Elkoshite.  The  three 
odes,  eager  and  passionate  pieces,  are  all  of  them  appar- 
ently vibrant  to  the  impending  fall  of  Assyria.  The 
first,  chap.  i.  with  the  possible  inclusion  of  chap.  ii.  2,^ 
is  general  and  theological,  affirming  God's  power  of 
vengeance  and  the  certainty  of  the  overthrow  of  His 
enemies.  The  second,  chap.  ii.  with  the  omission  of 
ver.  2,^  and  the  third,  chap,  iii.,  can  hardly  be  disjoined; 
they  both  present  a  vivid  picture  of  the  siege,  the 
storm  and  the  spoiling  of  Niniveh. 

The  introductory  questions,  which  title  and  contents 
start,  are  in  the  main  three  :  i.  The  position  of  Elkosh, 
to  which  the  title  assigns  the  prophet ;  2.  The 
authenticity  of  chap.  i. ;  3.  The  date  of  chaps,  ii.,  iii.  : 
to  which  siege  of  Niniveh  do  they  refer  ? 

^  In  the  English  version,  but  in  the  Hebrew  chap.  ii.  vv.  i  and  3  ; 
for  the  Hebrew  text  divides  chap.  i.  from  chap.  ii.  differently  from 
the  English,  which  follows  the  Greek.  The  Hebrew  begins  chap.  ii. 
with  what  in  the  English  and  Greek  is  the  fifteenth  verse  of  chap.  i.  : 
Beholdy  upon  the  mountains,  etc. 

^  In  the  English  text,  but  in  the  Hebrew  with  the  omission  of 
w.  I  and  3 :  see  previous  note, 

77 


78  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


I.  The  Position  of  Elkosh. 

The  title  calls  Nahum  the  Elkoshite — that  is,  native 
or  citizen  of  Elkosh.-^  Three  positions  have  been 
claimed  for  this  place,  which  is  not  mentioned  elsewhere 
in  the  Bible. 

The  first  we  take  is  the  modern  Al-Kush,  a  town 
still  flourishing  about  twenty-four  miles  to  the  north 
of  the  site  of  Niniveh,^  with  "no  fragments  of  antiquity" 
about  it,  but  possessing  a  "  simple  plaster  box,"  which 
Jews,  Christians  and  Mohammedans  alike  reverence 
as  the  tomb  of  Nahum.^  There  is  no  evidence  that 
Al-Kush,  a  name  of  Arabic  form,  is  older  than  the 
Arab  period,  while  the  tradition  which  locates  the 
tomb  there  is  not  found  before  the  sixteenth  century 
of  our  era,  but  on  the  contrary  Nahum's  grave  was 
pointed  out  to  Benjamin  of  Tudela  in  1165  at  'Ain 
Japhata,  on  the  south  of  Babylon.^  The  tradition  that 
the  prophet  lived  and  died  at  Al-Kush  is  therefore 
due  to  the  similarity  of  the  name  to  that  of  Nahum's 
Elkosh,  as  well  as  to  the  fact  that  Niniveh  was  the 
subject  of  his  prophesying.'^  In  his  book  there  is 
j  no  trace  of  proof  for  the  assertion  that  Nahum  was 
a  descendant  of  the  ten  tribes  exiled  in  721  to  the 
region  to  the  north  of  Al-Kush.  He  prophesies  for 
Judah  alone.  Nor  does  he  show  any  more  knowledge 
of  Niniveh  than  her  ancient  fame  must  have  scattered 


1  Other  meanings  have  been  suggested,  but  are  impossible. 

-  So  it  lies  on  Billerbeck's  map  in  Delitzsch  and  Haupt's  Beitrage 
zur  Assyr.^  III.  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary  puts  it  at  only  2  m.  N.  of 
Mosul. 

8  Laj-ard,  Niniveh  and  its  Remains,  I.  233,  3rd  ed.,  1 849. 

•*  Bohn's  Early  Travels  in  Palestine,  p.  102. 

^  Just  as  they  show  Jonah's  tomb  at  Niniveh  itself. 


THE  BOOK  OF  NAHUM  79 

to  the  limits  of  the  world.  ^  We  might  as  well  argue 
from  chap.  iii.  8-10  that  Nahum  had  visited  Thebes 
of  Egypt. 

The  second  tradition  of  the  position  of  Elkosh  is 
older.  In  his  commentary  on  Nahum  Jerome  says 
that  in  his  day  it  still  existed,  a  petty  village  of  Galilee, 
under  the  name  of  Helkesei,^  or  Elkese,  and  apparently 
with  an  established  reputation  as  the  town  of  Nahum.^ 
But  the  book  itself  bears  no  symptom  of  its  author's 
connection  with  Galilee,  and  although  it  was  quite 
possible  for  a  prophet  of  that  period  to  have  lived  there, 
it  is  not  very  probable.* 

A  third  tradition  places  Elkosh  in  the  south  of  Judah. 
A  Syriac  version  of  the  accounts  of  the  prophets,  which 
are  ascribed  to  Epiphanius,^  describes  Nahum  as  "of 
Elkosh  beyond  Bet  Gabre,  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon  " ;  ^  and 


*  See  above,  p.  18. 

^  Just  as  in  Micah's  case  Jerome  calls  his  birthplace  Moresheth  by 
the  adjective  Morasthi,  so  with  equal  carelessness  he  calls  Elkosh 
by  the  adjective  with  the  article  Ha-elkoshi,  the  Elkoshite.  Jerome's 
words  are  :  "  Quum  Elcese  usque  hodie  in  Galilea  viculus  sit,  parvus 
quidem  et  vix  ruinis  veterum  sedificiorum  indicans  vestigia,  sed  tamen 
notus  Judaeis  et  mihi  quoque  a  circumducente  monstratus  "  (in  Prol. 
ad  Prophetiam  Nachumi).  In  the  Onomasticon  Jerome  gives  the  name 
as  Elcese,  Eusebius  as  'EX/cecre,  but  without  defining  the  position. 

^  This  Elkese  has  been  identified,  though  not  conclusively,  with 
the  modern  El  Kauze  near  Ramieh,  some  seven  miles  W.  of  Tibnin. 

*  Cf.  Kuenen,  §  75,  n,  5  ;  Davidson,  p.  12  (2). 

Capernaum,  which  the  Textus  Receptus  gives  as  Kaireppao^/j,,  but 
most  authorities  as  Kacpapvaovjn  and  the  Peshitto  as  Kaphar  Nahum, 
obviously  means  Village  of  Nahum,  and  both  Hitzig  and  Knobel 
looked  for  Elkosh  in  it.     See  Hi'sf.  Geog.,  p.  456. 

Against  the  Galilean  origin  of  Nahum  it  is  usual  to  appeal  to 
John  vii.  52  :  Search  and  see  that  out  of  Galilee  ariseth  no  prophet ; 
but  this  is  not  decisive,  for  Jonah  came  out  of  Galilee. 

^  Though  perhaps  falsely. 

'  This  occurs  in  the  Syriac  translation  of  the  Old  Testament  by  Paul 


8o  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

it  may  be  noted  that  Cyril  of  Alexandria  says  ^  that 
Elkese  was  a  village  in  the  country  of  the  Jews.  This 
tradition  is  superior  to  the  first  in  that  there  is  no  appar- 
ent motive  for  its  fabrication,  and  to  the  second  in  so 
far  as  Judah  was  at  the  time  of  Nahum  a  much  more 
probable  home  for  a  prophet  than  Galilee  ;  nor  does 
the  book  give  any  references  except  such  as  might  be 
made  by  a  Judaean.^  No  modern  place-name,  however, 
can  be  suggested  with  any  certainty  as  the  echo  of 
Elkosh.  Umm  Lakis,  which  has  been  proved  not  to 
be  Lachish,  contains  the  same  radicals,  and  some  six 
and  a  quarter  miles  east  from  Beit-Jibrin  at  the  upper 
end  of  the  Wady  es  Sur  there  is  an  ancient  well  with 
the  name  Bir  el  Kus.^ 

of  Telia,  617  A.D.,  in  which  the  notices  of  Epiphanius  (Bishop  of 
Constantia  in  Cyprus  a.d.  367)  or  Pseudepiphanius  are  attached  to 
their  respective  prophets.  It  was  first  communicated  to  the  Z.D.P.V., 
I.  122  ff.,  by  Dr.  Nestle  :  cf.  Ht'si.  Geog.,  p.  231,  n.  i.  The  previously 
known  readings  of  the  passage  were  either  geographically  impossible, 
as  "He  came  from  Elkesei  beyond  Jordan,  towards  Begabar  of  the 
tribe  of  Simeon "  (so  in  Paris  edition,  1622,  of  the  works  of 
St.  Epiphanius,  Vol.  II.,  p.  147  :  cf.  Migne,  Pair.  Gr.,  XLIII.  409) ; 
or  based  on  a  misreading  of  the  title  of  the  book  :  "  Nahum  son  of 
Elkesaios  was  of  Jesbe  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon " ;  or  indefinable  : 
"  Nahum  was  of  Elkesem  beyond  Betabarem  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon  "  ; 
these  last  two  from  recensions  of  Epiphanius  published  in  1855  by 
Tischendorf  (quoted  by  Davidson,  p.  13).  In  the  I,Tixvp^f  rwv  IB' 
Upocp-OTiov  Kal  'Iffaiov,  attributed  to  Hesychius,  Presbyter  of  Jerusalem, 
who  died  428  oi*  433  (Migne,  Patrologia  Gr.,  XCIII.  1357),  it  is 
said  that  Nahum  was  airb  'KkKeaelv  (Helcesin)  trepav  rod  rriv^apelv 
cK  (pvKrjs  "Zvixeibv ;  to  which  has  been  added  a  note  from  Theophylact, 
'EXKacrat  ir^pav  rod  'lopddvov  eis  Biyaj3pl. 

>  Ad  Nahum  i.  I  (Migne,  Pair.  Gr.,  LXXI.  780) :  KJjfir)  dk  avrrj 
travTCOS  ttov  ttjs  'lovdaicov  x^P^^' 

2  The  selection  Bashan,  Carmel  and  Lebanon  (i.  4),  does  not  prove 
northern  authorship. 

^  tJ'ippX  may  be  (i)  a  theophoric  name  =  Kosh  is  God;  and 
Kosh  might  then  be  the  Edomite  deity  Dtp  whose  name  is  spelt  with 


THE  BOOK  OF  NAHUM  8i 


2.  The  Authenticity  of  Chap.  I. 

Till  recently  no  one  doubted  that  the  three  chapters 
formed  a  unity.  ''  Nahum's  prophecy,"  said  Kuenen 
in  1889,  "is  a  whole."  In  1891  ^  Cornill  affirmed  that 
no  questions  of  authenticity  arose  in  regard  to  the 
book;  and  in  1892  Wellhausen  saw  in  chap.  i.  an 
introduction  leading  "in  no  awkward  way  to  the  proper 
subject  of  the  prophecy." 

Meantime,  however,  Bickell,^  discovering  what  he 
thought  to  be  the  remains  of  an  alphabetic  Psalm 
in  chap.  i.  1-7,  attempted  to  reconstruct  throughout 
chap.  i. — ii.  3  twenty-two  verses,  each  beginning  with  a 
successive  letter  of  the  alphabet.  And,  following  this, 
Gunkel  in   1893   produced  a  more  full  and  plausible 


a  Shin  on  the  Assyrian  monuments  (Baethgen,  Beitriige  z.  Semit. 
Religionsgeschichte,  p.  ii;  Schrader,  K.A.T,'^,  pp.  150,  613),  and  who 
is  probably  the  same  as  the  Arab  deity  Kais  (Baethgen,  id.,  p.  108) ; 
and  this  would  suit  a  position  in  the  south  of  Judah,  in  which  region 
we  find  the  majority  of  place-names  compounded  with  ?i^.  Or 
else  (2)  the  i<  is  prosthetic,  as  in  the  place-names  2''T35<  on  the 
Phoenician  coast,  P)5i^DX  in  Southern  Canaan,  ^^K^^?,  etc.  In  this 
case  we  might  find  its  equivalent  in  the  form  S^lp?  (cf.  l^tDJ<  3''T3)  • 
but  no  such  form  is  now  extant  or  recorded  at  any  previous  period. 
The  form  Lakis  would  not  suit.  On  Bir  el  Kus  see  Robinson,  B.R., 
III.,  p.  14,  and  Guenn,Judee,  III.,  p.  341.  Bir  el  Kus  means  Well  of 
the  Bow,  or,  according  to  Guerin,  of  the  Arch,  from  ruins  that  stand 
by  it.  The  position,  east  of  Beit-Jibrin,  is  unsuitable  ;  for  the  early  . 
Christian  texts  quoted  in  the  previous  note  fix  it  beyond,  presumably 
south  or  south-west  of  Beit-Jibrin,  and  in  the  tribe  of  Simeon.  The 
error  '*  tribe  of  Simeon  ''  does  not  matter,  for  the  same  fathers  place 
Bethzecharias,  the  alleged  birthplace  of  Habakkuk,  there. 

'  Einleitung,  ist  ed. 

-  Who  seems  to  have  owed  the  hint  to  a  quotation  by  Delitzsch 
on  Psalm  ix.  from  G.  Frohnmeyer  to  the  effect  that  there  were  traces 
of  "  alphabetic  "  verses  in  chap,  i.,  at  least  in  vv.  3-7.     See  Bickell's 
Beiirdge  sur  Semit,  Metrik,  Separatabdruck,  Wien,  1894. 
VOL.  II.  6 


82  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

reconstruction  of  the  same  scheme.^  By  radical  emen- 
dations of  the  text,  by  excision  of  what  he  beHeves  to 
be  glosses  and  by  altering  the  order  of  many  of  the 
verses,  Gunkel  seeks  to  produce  twenty-three  distichs, 
twenty  of  which  begin  with  the  successive  letters  of 
the  alphabet,  two  are  wanting,  while  in  the  first  three 
letters  of  the  twenty-third,  ,  he  finds  very  probable 
the  name  of  the  author,  Shobai  or  Shobi.^  He  takes 
this  ode,  therefore,  to  be  an  eschatological  Psalm  of 
the  later  Judaism,  which  from  its  theological  bearing 
has  been  thought  suitable  as  an  introduction  to 
Nahum's  genuine  prophecies. 

The  text  of  chap,  i.— ii.  4  has  been  badly  mauled  and 
is  clamant  for  reconstruction  of  some  kind.  As  it 
lies,  there  are  traces  of  an  alphabetical  arrangement 
as  far  as  the  beginning  of  ver.  9,^  and  so  far  Gunkel's 
changes  are  comparatively  simple.  Many  of  his  emen- 
dations are  in  themselves  and  apart  from  the  alphabetic 
scheme  desirable.  They  get  rid  of  difficulties  and 
improve  the  poetry  of  the  passage.^  His  reconstruction 
is  always  clever  and  as  a  whole  forms  a  wonderfully 
spirited  poem.  But  to  have  produced  good  or  poetical 
Hebrew  is  not  conclusive  proof  of  having  recovered 
the  original,  and  there  are  obvious  objections  to  the 


1  Z.A.T.W.,  1893,  pp.  223  ff. 

2  Cf.  Ezra  ii.  42 ;  Neh.  vii.  45  ;  2  Sam.  xvii.  27. 

3  Ver.  I  is  title  ;  2  begins  with  N ;  3  is  found  in  nSIDD,  36;  3  in 
")y"l)l,  4;  1  is  wanting — Bickell  proposes  to  substitute  a  New-Hebrew 
word  p^^,  Gunkel  1^1,  for  "p^DN,  4^;  H  in  Dnn,  5«;  1  in  NS^Tll,  56 ; 
T  by  removing  ''JD*?  of  ver.  6a  to  the  end  of  the  clause  (and  reading 
it  there  VJS'?),  and  so  leaving  IDUT  as  the  first  word ;  H  in  inDPI  in 
66;  ID  in  lltD,  ^a',  >  hy  eliding  1  from  yn>1,  76 ;  3  in  n7D,  8 ;  ^  is 
wanting,  though  Gunkel  seeks  to  supply  it  by  taking  9c,  beginning 
vh,  with  96,  before  9a ;  D  begins  9«. 

■*  See  below  in  the  translation. 


THE  BOOK  OF  NAHUM  %s 

process.  Several  of  the  proposed  changes  are  unnatural 
in  themselves  and  unsupported  by  anything  except  the 
exigencies  of  the  scheme ;  for  example,  2b  and  3a  are 
dismissed  as  a  gloss  only  because,  if  they  be  retained,  the 
Aleph  verse  is  two  bars  too  long.  The  gloss,  Gunkel 
thinks,  was  introduced  to  mitigate  the  absoluteness  of 
the  declaration  that  Jehovah  is  a  God  of  wrath  and 
vengeance  ;  but  this  is  not  obvious  and  would  hardly 
have  been  alleged  apart  from  the  needs  of  the  alphabetic 
scheme.  In  order  to  find  a  Daleth,  it  is  quite  arbitrary 
to  say  that  the  first  bb'O^  in  46  is  redundant  in  face 
of  the  second,  and  that  a  word  beginning  with  Daleth 
originally  filled  its  place,  but  was  removed  because  it 
was  a  rare  or  difficult  word !  The  re-arrangement  of 
7  and  8«  is  very  clever,  and  reads  as  if  it  were  right ;  but 
the  next  effort,  to  get  a  verse  beginning  with  Lamed^ 
is  of  the  kind  by  which  anything  might  be  proved. 
These,  however,  are  nothing  to  the  difficulties  which 
vv.  9-14  and  chap.  ii.  i,  3,  present  to  an  alphabetic 
scheme,  or  to  the  means  which  Gunkel  takes  to  surmount 
them.  He  has  to  re-arrange  the  order  of  the  verses,^ 
and  of  the  words  within  the  verses.  The  distichs 
beginning  with  Nun  and  Koph  are  wanting,  or  at 
least  undecipherable.  To  provide  one  with  initial  Resh 
the  interjection  has  to  be  removed  from  the  opening 
of  chap.  ii.  I,  and  the  verse  made  to  begin  with  hlir\  and 
to  run  thus  :  the  feet  of  him  that  bringeth  good  news 
on  the  mountains;  behold  him  that  publisheth  peace. 
Other  unlikely  changes  will  be  noticed  when  we  come 
to  the  translation.  Here  we  may  ask  the  question  :  if 
the  passage  was  originally  alphabetic,  that  is,  furnished 
with  so  fixed  and  easily  recognised  a  frame,  why  has 
it  so  fallen  to  pieces  ?     And  again,  if  it  has  so  fallen 

*  As  thus:  9a,  116,  12  (but  unintelligible),  10,  13,  14,  ii.  i,  3. 


84  '  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

to  pieces,  is  it  possible  that  it  can  be  restored  ?  The 
many  arbitrarinesses  of  Gunkel's  able  essay  would  seem 
to  imply  that  it  is  not.  Dr.  Davidson  says  :  "  Even  if 
it  should  be  assumed  that  an  alphabetical  poem  lurks 
under  chap,  i.,  the  attempt  to  restore  it,  just  as  in 
Psalm  X.,  can  never  be  more  than  an  academic  exercise." 

Little  is  to  be  learned  from  the  language.  Well- 
hausen,  who  makes  no  objection  to  the  genuineness  of 
the  passage,  thinks  that  about  ver.  7  we  begin  to  catch 
the  familiar  dialect  of  the  Psalms.  Gunkel  finds  a 
want  of  originality  in  the  language,  with  many  touches 
that  betray  connection  not  only  with  the  Psalms  but 
with  late  eschatological  literature.  But  when  we  take 
one  by  one  the  clauses  of  chap,  i.,  we  discover  very  few 
parallels  with  the  Psalms,  which  are  not  at  the  same 
time  parallels  with  Jeremiah's  or  some  earlier  writings. 
That  the  prophecy  is  vague,  and  with  much  of  the  air 
of  the  later  eschatology  about  it,  is  no  reason  for 
removing  it  from  an  age  in  which  we  have  already 
seen  prophecy  beginning  to  show  the  same  apocalyptic 
temper.^  Gunkel  denies  any  reference  in  ver.  gb  to 
the  approaching  fall  of  Niniveh,  although  that  is  seen 
by  Kuenen,  Wellhausen,  Konig  and  others,  and  he 
omits  ver.  11  a,  in  which  most  read  an  allusion  to 
Sennacherib. 

Therefore,  while  it  is  possible  that  a  later  poem  has 
been  prefixed  to  the  genuine  prophecies  of  Nahum, 
and  the  first  chapter  supplies  many  provocations  to 
belief  in  such  a  theory,  this  has  not  been  proved,  and 
the  able  essays  of  proof  have  much  against  them.  The 
question  is  open.^ 

^  See  above  on  Zephaniah,  pp.  49  ff. 

^  Cornill,  in  the  2nd  ed.  of  his  Einleitung,  has  accepted  Gunkel's 
and  Bickell's  main  contentions. 


THE  BOOK  OF  NAHUM  85 

3.  The  Date  of  Chaps.  II.  and  III. 

We  turn  now  to  the  date  of  the  Book  apart  from  this 
prologue.  It  was  written  after  a  great  overthrow  of 
the  Egyptian  Thebes^  and  when  the  overthrow  of 
Niniveh  was  imminent.  Now  Thebes  had  been  devas- 
tated by  Assurbanipal  about  664  (we  know  of  no  later 
overthrow),  and  Niniveh  fell  finally  about  607.  Nahum 
flourished,  then,  somewhere  between  664  and  607." 
Some  critics,  feeling  in  his  description  of  the  fall  of 
Thebes  the  force  of  a .  recent  impression,  have  placed 
his  prophesying  immediately  after  that,  or  about  660.^ 
But  this  is  too  far  away  from  the  fall  of  Niniveh.  In  660 
the  power  of  Assyria  was  unthreatened.  Nor  is  652, 
the  year  of  the  revolt  of  Babylon,  Egypt  and  the 
princes  of  Palestine,  a  more  likely  date.^  For  although 
in  that  year  Assyrian  supremacy  ebbed  from  Egypt 
never  to  return,  Assurbanipal  quickly  reduced  Elam, 
Babylon  and  all  Syria.  Nahum,  on  the  other  hand, 
represents  the  very  centre  of  the  empire  as  threatened. 
The  land  of  Assyria  is  apparently  already  invaded  (iii.  1 3, 
etc.).  Niniveh,  if  not  invested,  must  immediately  be  so, 
and  that  by  forces  too  great  for  resistance.  Her  mixed 
populace  already  show  signs  of  breaking  up.  Within, 
as  without,  her  doom  is  sealed.  All  this  implies  not 
only  the  advance  of  an  enormous  force  upon  Niniveh, 
but  the  reduction  of  her  people  to  the  last  stage  of 

'  iii.  8-10. 

2  The  description  of  the  fall  of  No-Amon  precludes  the  older  view 
almost  universally  held  before  the  discovery  of  Assurbanipal's  destruc- 
tion of  Thebes,  viz.  that  Nahum  prophesied  in  the  days  of  Hezekiah 
or  in  the  earlier  years  of  Manasseh  (Lightfoot,  Pusey,  Nagelsbach,  etc.). 

^  So  Schrader,  Volck  in  Herz.  Real.  Enc,  and  others. 

*  It  is  favoured  by  Winckler,  A.T.  Unterstteh.,  pp.  127  f. 


86  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

hopelessness.  Now,  as  we  have  seen/  Assyria  proper 
was  thrice  overrun.  The  Scythians  poured  across  her 
about  626,  but  there  is  no  proof  that  they  threatened 
Niniveh.^  A  httle  after  Assurbanipal's  death  in  625, 
the  Medes  under  King  Phraortes  invaded  Assyria,  but 
Phraortes  was  slain  and  his  son  Kyaxares  called  away 
by  an  invasion  of  his  own  country.  Herodotus  says 
that  this  was  after  he  had  defeated  the  Assyrians  in  a 
battle  and  had  begun  the  siege  of  Niniveh,^  but  before 
he  had  succeeded  in  reducing  the  city.  After  a  time 
he  subdued  or  assimilated  the  Medes,  and  then  invest- 
ing Niniveh  once  more,  about  607,  in  two  years  he  took 
and  destroyed  her. 

To  which  of  these  two  sieges  by  Kyaxares  are  we 
to  assign  the  Book  of  Nahum  ?  Hitzig,  Kuenen, 
Cornill  and  others  incline  to  the  first  on  the  ground 
that  Nahum  speaks  of  the  yoke  of  Assyria  as 
still  heavy  on  Judah,  though  about  to  be  lifted. 
They  argue  that  by  608,  when  King  Josiah  had 
already  felt  himself  free  enough  to  extend  his  reforms 
into  Northern  Israel,  and  dared  to  dispute  Necho's 
passage  across  Esdraelon,  the  Jews  must  have  been 
conscious  that  they  had  nothing  more  to  fear  from 
Assyria,  and  Nahum  could  hardly  have  written  as  he 
does  in  i.  13,  /  will  break  his  yoke  from  off  thee  and 
burst  thy  bonds  in  sunder}     But  this  is  not  conclusive, 

»  Above,  pp.  15  f. ;  19,  22  flf. 

2  This  in  answer  to  Jeremias  in  Delitzsch's  and  Haupt's  Beitrage 
zur  Assyriologie,  III.  96. 
^  I.  103. 

^  Hitzig's  other  reason,  that  the  besiegers  of  Niniveh  are  described 
by  Nahum  in  ii.  3  ff.  as  single,  which  was  true  of  the  siege  in  625  c,  but 
not  of  that  of  607-6,  when  the  Chaldeans  joined  the  Medes,  is  disposed 
of  by  the  proof  on  p.  22  above,  that  even  in  607-6  the  Medes  carried 
on  the  siege  alone. 


THE  BOOK  OF  NAHUM  87 

for  first,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  not  certain  that  i.  13  is 
from  Nahum  himself,  and  second^  if  it  be  from  himself, 
he  might  as  well  have  written  it  about  608  as  about 
625,  for  he  speaks  not  from  the  feelings  of  any  single 
year,  but  with  the  impression  upon  him  of  the  whole 
epoch  of  Assyrian  servitude  then  drawing  to  a  close. 
The  eve  of  the  later  siege  as  a  date  for  the  book  is,  as 
Davidson  remarks/  "well  within  the  verge  of  possi- 
bility," and  some  critics  prefer  it  because  in  their 
opinion  Nahum's  descriptions  thereby  acquire  greater 
reality  and  naturalness.  But  this  is  not  convincing,  for  if 
Kyaxares  actually  began  the  siege  of  Niniveh  about  625, 
Nahum's  sense  of  the  imminence  of  her  fall  is  perfectly 
natural.  Wellhausen  indeed  denies  that  earlier  siege. 
"  Apart  from  Herodotus,"  he  says,  "  it  would  never  have 
occurred  to  anybody  to  doubt  that  Nahum's  prophecy 
coincided  with  the  fall  of  Niniveh."'"^  This  is  true,  for 
it  is  to  Herodotus  alone  that  we  owe  the  tradition  of 
the  earlier  siege.  But  what  if  we  believe  Herodotus  ? 
In  that  case,  it  is  impossible  to  come  to  a  decision  as 
between  the  two  sieges.  With  our  present  scanty 
knowledge  of  both,  the  prophecy  of  Nahum  suits  either 
equally  well.^ 

Fortunately  it  is  not  necessary  to  come  to  a  decision. 


'  Page  17. 

^  In  commenting  on  chap,  i.  9;  p.  156  oi  Kleine  Propheten. 

^'The  phrase  which  is  so  often  appealed  to  by  both  sides,  i.  9, 
Jehovah  niaketh  a  complete  end,  not  twice  shall  trouble  arise,  is  really 
inconclusive.  Hitzig  maintains  that  if  Nahum  had  written  this  after 
the  first  and  before  the  second  siege  of  Niniveh  he  would  have  had 
to  say,  "not  thrice  shall  trouble  arise"  This  is  not  conclusive  :  the 
prophet  is  looking  only  at  the  future  and  thinking  of  it — not  twice 
again  shall  trouble  rise ;  and  if  there  were  really  two  sieges  of 
Niniveh,  would  the  words  not  twice  have  been  suffered  to  remain,  if 


88  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Nahum,  we  cannot  too  often  insist,  expresses  the 
feelings  neither  of  this  nor  of  that  decade  in  the  reign 
of  Josiah,  but  the  whole  volume  of  hope,  wrath  and 
just  passion  of  vengeance  which  had  been  gathering  for 
more  than  a  century  and  which  at  last  broke  into  exulta- 
tion when  it  became  certain  that  Niniveh  was  falling. 
That  suits  the  eve  of  either  siege  by  Kyaxares.  Till 
we  learn  a  little  more  about  the  first  siege  and  how 
far  it  proceeded  towards  a  successful  result,  perhaps 
we  ought  to  prefer  the  second.  And  of  course  those 
who  feel  that  Nahum  writes  not  in  the  future  but 
the  present  tense  of  the  details  of  Niniveh's  overthrow, 
must  prefer  the  second. 

That  the  form  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the  Book  of 
Nahum  is  poetical  is  proved  by  the  familiar  marks  of 
poetic  measure — the  unusual  syntax,  the  frequent 
absence  of  the  article  and  particles,  the  presence  of 
eUiptic  forms  and  archaic  and  sonorous  ones.  In  the 
two  chapters  on  the  siege  of  Niniveh  the  lines  are 
short  and  quick,  in  harmony  with  the  dashing  action 
they  echo. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  text  of  chap.  i.  is  very  un- 
certain. The  subject  of  the  other  two  chapters  involves 
the  use  of  a  number  of  technical  and  some  foreign 
terms,    of   the  meaning    of    most    of   which    we    are 


they  had  been  a  confident  prediction  before  the  first  siege  ?  Besides, 
the  meaning  of  the  phrase  is  not  certain  ;  it  may  be  only  a  general 
statement  corresponding  to  what  seems  a  general  statement  in  the 
first  clause  of  the  verse.  Kuenen  and  others  refer  the  trouble  not 
to  that  which  is  about  to  afflict  Assyria,  but  to  the  long  slavery  and 
slaughter  which  Judah  has  suffered  at  Assyria's  hands.  Davidson 
leaves  it  ambiguous. 


THE  BOOK  OF  NAHUM  89 

ignorant.^  There  are  apparently  some  glosses  ;  here 
and  there  the  text  is  obviously  disordered.  We  get 
the  usual  help,  and  find  the  usual  faults,  in  the 
-Septuagint ;  they  will  be  noticed  in  the  course  of  the 
translation. 

»  Technical  military  terms :  ii.  2,  miVO  ;  4,  m^PS  (?) ;  4,  ibl^in ; 
6,  pDH;  iii.  3,  rhv^iiy  Probably  foreign  terms:  ii.  8,  3Vn ; 
lii.  17,  intJD.     Certainly  foreign  :  iii.  17,  T'lDSD. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE   VENGEANCE  OF  THE  LORD 
Nahum  i 

THE  prophet  Nahum,  as  we  have  seen/  arose  pro- 
bably in  Judah,  if  not  about  the  same  time  as 
Zephaniah  and  Jeremiah,  then  a  few  years  later. 
Whether  he  prophesied  before  or  after  the  great 
Reform  of  621  we  have  no  means  of  deciding.  His 
book  does  not  reflect  the  inner  history,  character  or 
merits  of  his  generation.  His  sole  interest  is  the  fate 
of  Niniveh.  Zephaniah  had  also  doomed  the  Assyrian 
capital,  yet  he  was  much  more  concerned  with  Israel's 
unworthiness  of  the  opportunity  presented  to  them. 
The  yoke  of  Asshur,  he  saw,  was  to  be  broken,  but 
the  same  cloud  which  was  bursting  from  the  north 
upon  Niniveh  must  overwhelm  the  incorrigible  people 
of  Jehovah.  For  this  Nahum  has  no  thought.  His 
heart,  for  all  its  bigness,  holds  room  only  for  the 
bitter  memories,  the  baffled  hopes,  the  unappeased 
hatreds  of  a  hundred  years.  And  that  is  why  we 
need  not  be  anxious  to  fix  his  date  upon  one  or  other 
of  the  shifting  phases  of  Israel's  history  during  that 
last  quarter  of  the  seventh  century.  For  he  represents 
no  single  movement  of  his  fickle  people's  progress,  but 

>  Above,  pp.  78  ff,,  85  ff. 
90 


Nahumi.]        THE    VENGEANCE   OF   THE  LORD  91 

the  passion  of  the  whole  epoch  then  drawing  to  a 
close.     Nahum's  book  is  one  great  At  Last ! 

And,  therefore,  while  Nahum  is  a  worse  prophet 
than  Zephaniah,  with  less  conscience  and  less  in- 
sight, he  is  a  greater  poet,  pouring  forth  the  exultation 
of  a  people  long  enslaved,  who  see  their  tyrant  ready 
for  destruction.  His  language  is  strong  and  brilliant ; 
his  rhythm  rumbles  and  rolls,  leaps  and  flashes,  Hke 
the  horsemen  and  chariots  he  describes.  It  is  a  great 
pity  the  text  is  so  corrupt.  If  the  original  lay  before 
us,  and  that  full  knowledge  of  the  times  which  the 
excavation  of  ancient  Assyria  may  still  yield  to  us,  we 
might  judge  Nahum  to  be  an  even  greater  poet  than 
we  do. 

We  have  seen  that  there  are  some  reasons  for  doubt- 
ing whether  he  wrote  the  first  chapter  of  the  book,^ 
but  no  one  questions  its  fitness  as  an  introduction  to 
the  exultation  over  Niniveh's  fall  in  chapters  ii.  and  iii. 
The  chapter  is  theological,  affirming  those  general 
principles  of  Divine  Providence,  by  which  the  over- 
throw of  the  tyrant  is  certain  and  God's  own  people  are 
assured  of  deliverance.  Let  us  place  ourselves  among 
the  people,  who  for  so  long  a  time  had  been  thwarted, 
crushed  and  demorahsed  by  the  most  brutal  empire 
which  was  ever  suffered  to  roll  its  force  across  the 
world,  and  we  shall  sympathise  with  the  author,  who 
for  the  moment  will  feel  nothing  about  his  God,  save 
that  He  is  a  God  of  vengeance.  Like  the  grief  of  a 
bereaved  man,  the  vengeance  of  an  enslaved  people  has 
hours  sacred  to  itself.  And  this  people  had  such  a 
God  !  Jehovah  must  punish  the  tyrant,  else  were  He 
untrue.     He  had  been  patient,  and  patient,  as  a  verse 

1  See  above,  pp.  81  flf. 


92  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

seems  to  hint/  just  because  He  was  omnipotent,  but 
in  the  end  He  must  rise  to  judgment.  He  was  God  of 
heaven  and  earth,  and  it  is  the  old  physical  proofs  of 
His  power,  so  often  appealed  to  by  the  peoples  of  the 
East,  for  they  feel  them  as  we  cannot,  which  this  hymn 
calls  up  as  Jehovah  sweeps  to  the  overthrow  of  the 
oppressor.  Before  such  power  of  wrath  who  may 
stand  ?  What  think  ye  of  Jehovah  ?  The  God  who 
works  with  such  ruthless,  absolute  force  in  nature  will 
not  relax  in  the  fate  He  is  preparing  for  Niniveh.  He 
is  one  who  maketh  titter  destruction,  not  needing  to  raise 
up  His  forces  a  second  time,  and  as  stubble  before 
fire  so  His  foes  go  down  before  Him.  No  half- 
measures  are  His,  Whose  are  the  storm,  the  drought 
and  the  earthquake. 

Such  is  the  sheer  religion  of  the  Proem  to  the  Book 
of  Nahum — thoroughly  Oriental  in  its  sense  of  God's 
method  and  resources  of  destruction ;  very  Jewish, 
and  very  natural  to  that  age  of  Jewish  history,  in  the 
bursting  of  its  long  pent  hopes  of  revenge.  We  of 
the  West  might  express  these  hopes  differently.  We 
should  not  attribute  so  much  personal  passion  to  the 
Avenger.  With  our  keener  sense  of  law,  we  should 
emphasise  the  slowness  of  the  process,  and  select  for 
its  illustration  the  forces  of  decay  rather  than  those  of 
sudden  ruin.  But  we  must  remember  the  crashing 
times  in  which  the  Jews  lived.  The  world  was  break- 
ing up.  The  elements  were  loose,  and  all  that  God's 
own  people  could  hope  for  was  the  bursting  of  their 
yoke,  with  a  little  shelter  in  the  day  of  trouble.  The 
elements  were  loose,  but  amidst  the  blind  crash  the 
little  people  knew  that  Jehovah  knew  them. 

'  Ver.  3,  if  the  reading  be  correct. 


Nahumi.]       THE   VENGEANCE  OF  THE  LORD  93 


A  God  jealous  and  avenging  is  Jehovah  ; 
Jehovah  is  avenger  and  lord  of  wrath  ; 
Vengeful  is  Jehovah  towards  His  enemies, 
And  implacable  He  to  His  foes. 

Jehovah  is  long-suffering  and  great  in  mighty 

Yet  He  will  not  absolve. 
Jehovah  I  His  way  is  in  storm  and  in  hurricane, 

And  clouds  are  the  dust  of  His  feet? 

He  curbeth  the  sea,  and  drieth  it  up  ; 

All  the  streams  hath  He  parched. 

Withered^  be  Bashan  and  Carmel ; 

The  bloom  of  Lebanon  is  withered. 

Mountains  have  quaked  before  Him, 

And  the  hills  have  rolled  down. 

Earth  heaved  at  His  presence, 

The  world  and  all  its  inhabitants. 

Before  His  rage  who  may  stand. 

Or  who  abide  in  the  glow  of  His  anger  ? 

His  wrath  pours  forth  like  fire, 

And  rocks  are  rent  before  Him. 

Good  is  Jehovah  to  them  that  wait  upon  Him  in  the 

day  of  trouble,"^ 
And  He  knoweth  them  that  trust  Him. 
With  an  overwhelming  flood  He  makes  an  end  of 

His  rebels. 
And  His  foes  He  comes  down  on  ^  with  darkness. 


'  Gunkel  amends  to  in  mercy  to  make  the  parallel  exact.  But  see 
above,  p.  82. 

-  Gunkel's  emendation  is  quite  unnecessary  here. 

8  See  above,  p.  83. 

*  So  LXX.      Heb.  =  for  a  stronghold  in  the  day  of  trouble. 

^  Thrusts  into,  Wellhausen,  reading  f]n3^  or  S^T^  for  P)^"l\  LXX. 
darkness  shall  pursue. 


94  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

'    What  think  ye  of  Jehovah  ? 

He  is  one  that  makes  utter  destruction  ; 

Not  twice  need  trouble  arise. 

For  though  they  be  like  plaited  thorns^ 

And  sodden  as  ...  ,^ 

They  shall  be  consumed  like  dry  stubble. 

Came  there  not  ^  out  of  thee  one  to  plan  evil  against 

Jehovah, 
A  counsellor  of  mischief?  ^ 

Thus  saith  Jehovah^  .  .  .  many  waters,"^  yet  shall  they 
be  cut  off  and  pass  away,  and  I  will  so  humble  thee  that 
I  need  humble  thee  ^  no  more;^  and  Jehovah  hath  ordered 
concerning  thee,  that  no  more  of  thy  seed  be  sown :  from 
the  house  of  thy  God,  I  will  cut  off  graven  and  molten 
image.     I  will  make  thy  sepulchre  .  .  .^ 

'  Heb.  and  R.V.  drenched  as  with  their  drink.  LXX.  like  a  tangled 
yew.     The  text  is  corrupt. 

^  The  superfluous  word  N7t0  at  the  end  of  ver.  lo  Wellhausen 
reads  as  N?!!  at  the  beginning  of  ver.  1 1. 

^  Usually  taken  as  Sennacherib. 

*  The  Hebrew  is  given  by  the  R.V.  though  they  be  in  full  strength 
and  likewise  many.  LXX.  Thus  saith  Jehovah  ruling  over  many  waters, 
reading  D*"!"!  D''D  7^'0  and  omitting  the  first  pi.  Similarly  Syr. 
Th^ts  saith  Jehovah  of  the  heads  of  many  waters,  D''3'1  D"'JD  vC'D  /Xl. 
Wellhausen,  substituting  D''?0  for  the  first  pi,  translates,  Let  the  great 
ivaters  be  ever  so  full,  they  will  yet  all .  .  .1  (misprint  here)  and  vanish 
For  13y  read  VO.'ii  with  LXX.,  borrowing  1  from  next  word. 

*  Lit.  and  I  will  afflict  thee,  I  will  not  afflict  thee  again.  This 
rendering  implies  that  Niniveh  is  the  object.  The  A.V.,  though 
I  have  afflicted  thee  I  will  afflict  thee  no  more,  refers  to   Israel. 

^  Omit  ver.  13  and  run  14  on  to  12.  For  the  curious  alternation 
now  occurs  :  Assyria  in  one  verse,  Judah  in  the  other.  Assyria  : 
i.  12,  14,  ii.  2  (Heb.;  Eng.  ii.  i),  48".  Judah:  i.  13,  ii.  i  (Heb.; 
Eng.  i.  15),  3  (Heb.;  Eng.  2).  Remove  these  latter,  as  Wellhausen 
does,  and  the  verses  on  Assyria  remain  a  connected  and  orderly 
whole.     So  in  the  text  above. 

■^  Syr.  make  it  thy  sepulchre.     The  Hebrew  left  untranslated  above 


Nahumi.]       THE   VENGEANCE  OF  THE  LORD  95 

Disentangled  from  the  above  verses  are  three  which 
plainly  refer  not  to  Assyria  but  to  Judah.  How  they 
came  to  be  woven  among  the  others  we  cannot  tell. 
Some  of  them  appear  applicable  to  the  days  of  Josiah 
after  the  great  Reform. 

And  now  will  I  break  his  yoke  from  upon  thee, 

And  burst  thy  bonds  asunder. 

Lo,  upon  the  mountains  the  feet  of  Him  that  bringeth 

good  tidings, 
That  publisheth  peace  ! 
Keep,  thy  feasts,  O  Judah, 
Fulfil  thy  vows : 
For  no  more  shall  the  wicked  attempt  to  pass  through 


Cut  off  is  the  whole  of  him. ^ 

For  Jehovah  hath  turned  the  pride  of  Jacob, 

Like  to  the  pride  of  Israel :  ^ 

For  the  plunderers  plundered  them. 

And  destroyed  their  vinebranches. 

might  be  rendered /o^  thou  art  vile,  Bickell  amends  into  dunghills. 
Lightfoot,  Chron.  Temp,  et  Ord.  Text  V.T.  in  Collected  Works,  I.  109, 
takes  this  as  a  prediction  of  Sennacherib's  murder  in  the  temple, 
an  interpretation  which  demands  a  date  for  Nahum  under  either 
Hezekiah  or  Manasseh.     So  Pusey  also,  p.  357. 

•  LXX.  destruction,  .1^3  for  xb^. 

-  Davidson  :  restoreth  the  excellency  of  Jacob,  as  the  excellency  of  Israel, 
but  when  was  the  latter  restored  ? 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  SIEGE  AND  FALL   OF  NINIVEH 
Nahum  ii.,  iii 

THE  scene  now  changes  from  the  presence  and 
awful  arsenal  of  the  Almighty  to  the  historical 
consummation  of  His  vengeance.  Nahum  foresees  the 
siege  of  Niniveh.  Probably  the  Medes  have  already 
overrun  Assyria.^  The  Old  Lion  has  withdrawn  to 
his  inner  den,  and  is  making  his  last  stand.  The 
suburbs  are  full  of  the  enemy,  and  the  great  walls 
which  made  the  inner  city  one  vast  fortress  are  invested. 
Nahum  describes  the  details  of  the  assault.  Let  us 
try,  before  we  follow  him  through  them,  to  form  some 
picture  of  Assyria  and  her  capital  at  this  time.^ 

'  See  above,  pp.  22  ff. 

*  The  authorities  are  very  full.  First  there  is  M.  Botta's  huge  work 
Monument  de  Ninive,  Paris,  5  vols.,  1845.  Then  must  be  mentioned 
the  work  of  which  we  availed  ourselves  in  describing  Babylon  in 
Isaiah  xl. — Ixvi.,  Expositor's  Bible,  pp.  52  ff. :  "Memoirs  by  Com- 
mander James  Felix  Jones,  I.N.,"  in  Selections  from  the  Records  of  the 
Bombay  Government,  No.  XLIII.,  New  Series,  1857.  It  is  good  to  find 
that  the  careful  and  able  observations  of  Commander  Jones,  too  much 
neglected  in  his  own  country,  have  had  justice  done  them  by  the 
German  Colonel  Billerbeck  in  the  work  about  to  be  cited.  Then 
there  is  the  invaluable  Niniveh  and  its  Remains,  by  Layard.  There 
are  also  the  works  of  Rawlinson  and  George  Smith.  And  recently 
Colonel  Billerbeck,  founding  on  these  and  other  works,  has  published 
an  admirable  monograph  (lavishly  illustrated  by  maps  and  pictures), 

96 


Kahumii.,iii.]     THE  SIEGE  AND  FALL   OF  NINIVEH        gj 

As  we  have  seen/  the  Assyrian  Empire  began 
about  625  to  shrink  to  the  Hmits  of  Assyria  proper,  or 
Upper  Mesopotamia,  within  the  Euphrates  on  the  south- 
west, the  mountain-range  of  Kurdistan  on  the  north- 
east, the  river  Chabor  on  the  north-west  and  the 
Lesser  Zab  on  the  south-east.^  This  is  a  territory  of 
nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  north  to  south, 
and  rather  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  from  east 
to  west.  To  the  south  of  it  the  Viceroy  of  Babylon, 
Nabopolassar,  held  practically  independent  sway  over 
Lower  Mesopotamia,  if  he  did  not  command  as  well  a 
large  part  of  the  Upper  Euphrates  Valley.  On  the  north 
the  Medes  were  urgent,  holding  at  least  the  farther 
ends  of  the  passes  through  the  Kurdish  mountains,  if 
they  had  not  already  penetrated  these  to  their  southern 
issues. 

The  kernel  of  the  Assyrian  territory  was  the  triangle, 
two  of  whose  sides  are  represented  by  the  Tigris 
and  the  Greater  Zab,  the  third  by  the  foot  of  the 
Kurdistan  mountains.  It  is  a  fertile  plain,  with  some 
low  hills.  To-day  the  level  parts  of  it  are  covered  by 
a  large  number  of  villages  and  well-cultivated  fields. 
The  more   frequent  mounds  of  ruin  attest  in  ancient 

not  only  upon  the  military  state  of  Assyria  proper  and  of  Niniveh 
at  this  period,  but  upon  the  whole  subject  of  Assyrian  fortification 
and  art  of  besieging,  as  well  as  upon  the  course  of  the  Median 
invasions.  It  forms  the  larger  part  of  an  article  to  which  Dr.  Alfred 
Jeremias  contributes  an  introduction,  and  reconstruction  with  notes 
of  chaps,  ii.  and  iii.  of  the  Book  of  Nahum  :  "  Der  Untergang 
Niniveh's  und  die  Weissagungschrift  des  Nahum  von  Elkosh,"  in 
Vol.  III.  of  Beitrdge  zur  Assyrtologie  und  Semitischen  Sprachwissen- 
schaft,  edited  by  Friedrich  DeUtzsch  and  Paul  Haupt,  with  the  support 
of  Johns  Hopkins  University  at  Baltimore,  U.S.A. :  Leipzig,  1895. 

'  Pages  20  f. 

2  Colonel  Billerbeck  (p.  115)  thinks  that  the  south-east  frontier  at 
this  time  lay  more  to  the  north,  near  the  Greater  Zab, 

VOL.  IL  7 


98  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

times  a  still  greater  population.  At  the  period  of  which 
we  are  treating,  the  plains  must  have  been  covered  by 
an  almost  continuous  series  of  towns.  At  either  end  lay 
a  group  of  fortresses.  The  southern  was  the  ancient 
capital  of  Assyria,  Kalchu,  now  Nimrud,  about  six 
miles  to  the  north  of  the  confluence  of  the  Greater  Zab 
and  the  Tigris.  The  northern,  close  by  the  present 
town  of  Khorsabad,  was  the  great  fortress  and  palace 
of  Sargon,  Dur-Sargina :  ^  it  covered  the  roads  upon 
Niniveh  from  the  north,  and  standing  upon  the  upper 
reaches  of  the  Choser  protected  Niniveh's  water  supply. 
But  besides  these  there  were  scattered  upon  all  the 
main  roads  and  round  the  frontiers  of  the  territory  a 
number  of  other  forts,  towers  and  posts,  the  ruins  of 
many  of  which  are  still  considerable,  but  others  have 
perished  without  leaving  any  visible  traces.  The  roads 
thus  protected  drew  in  upon  Niniveh  from  all  directions. 
The  chief  of  those,  along  which  the  Medes  and  their 
allies  would  advance  from  the  east  and  north,  crossed 
the  Greater  Zab,  or  came  down  through  the  Kurdistan 
mountains  upon  the  citadel  of  Sargon.  Two  of  them 
were  distant  enough  from  the  latter  to  relieve  the 
invaders  from  the  necessity  of  taking  it,  and  Kalchu 
lay  far  to  the  south  of  all  of  them.  The  brunt  of  the 
first  defence  of  the  land  would  therefore  fall  upon  the 
smaller  fortresses. 

Niniveh  itself  lay  upon  the  Tigris  between  Kalchu 
and  Sargon's  city,  just  where  the  Tigris  is  met  by  the 
Choser.  Low  hills  descend  from  the  north  upon  the 
very  site  of  the  fortress,  and  then  curve  east  and  south, 
bow-shaped,   to  draw  west  again   upon  the  Tigris  at 

^  First  excavated  by  M.  Botta,  1842— 1845.    See  also  George  Smith, 
Assyr.  Disc,  pp.  98  f. 


Nahum  ii.,  lii.]     THE  SIEGE  AND  FALL   OF  NINIVEH        99 

the  south  end  of  the  city.  To  the  east  of  the  latter 
they  leave  a  level  plain,  some  two  and  a  half  miles  by 
one  and  a  half.  These  hills  appear  to  have  been 
covered  by  several  forts.  The  city  itself  was  four- sided, 
lying  lengthwise  to  the  Tigris  and  cut  across  its  breadth 
by  the  Chosen  The  circumference  was  about  seven 
and  a  half  miles,  enclosing  the  largest  fortified  space 
in  Western  Asia,  and  capable  of  holding  a  population 
of  three  hundred  thousand.  The  western  wall,  rather 
over  two  and  a  half  miles  long,  touched  the  Tigris  at 
either  end,  but  between  there  lay  a  broad,  bow-shaped 
stretch  of  land,  probably  in  ancient  times,  as  now,  free 
of  buildings.  The  north-western  wall  ran  up  from  the 
Tigris  for  a  mile  and  a  quarter  to  the  low  ridge  which 
entered  the  city  at  its  northern  corner.  From  this  the 
eastern  wall,  with  a  curve  upon  it,  ran  down  in  face  of 
the  eastern  plain  for  a  little  more  than  three  miles,  and 
was  joined  to  the  western  by  the  short  southern  wall 
of  not  quite  half  a  mile.  The  ruins  of  the  western  wall 
stand  from  ten  to  twenty,  those  of  the  others  from 
twenty-five  to  sixty,  feet  above  the  natural  surface,  with 
here  and  there  the  still  higher  remains  of  towers. 
There  were  several  gates,  of  which  the  chief  were  one 
in  the  northern  and  two  in  the  eastern  wall.  Round 
all  the  walls  except  the  western  ran  moats  about  a 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  broad — not  close  up  to  the  foot 
of  the  walls,  but  at  a  distance  of  some  sixty  feet. 
Water  was  supplied  by  the  Choser  to  all  the  moats 
south  of  it ;  those  to  the  north  were  fed  fi-om  a  canal 
which  entered  the  city  near  its  northern  corner.  At 
these  and  other  points  one  can  still  trace  the  remains 
of  huge  dams,  batardeaux  and  sluices  ;  and  the  moats 
might  be  emptied  by  opening  at  either  end  of  the 
western  wall  other  dams,  which  kept  back  the  waters 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


from  the  bed  of  the  Tigris.  Beyond  its  moat,  the  eastern 
wall  was  protected  north  of  the  Choser  by  a  large 
outwork  covering  its  gate,  and  south  of  the  Choser  by 
another  outwork,  in  shape  the  segment  of  a  circle,  and 
consisting  of  a  double  Hne  of  fortification  more  than 
five  hundred  yards  long,  of  which  the  inner  wall  was 
almost  as  high  as  the  great  wall  itself,  but  the  outer 
considerably  lower.  Again,  in  front  of  this  and  in  face 
of  the  eastern  plain  was  a  third  line  of  fortification, 
consisting  of  a  low  inner  wall  and  a  colossal  outer  wall 
still  rising  to  a  height  of  fifty  feet,  with  a  moat  one 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  broad  between  them.  On  the 
south  this  third  line  was  closed  by  a  large  fortress. 

Upon  the  trebly  fortified  city  the  Medes  drew  in 
from  east  and  north,  far  away  from  Kalchu  and  able  to 
avoid  even  Dur-Sargina.  The  other  fortresses  on  the 
frontier  and  the  approaches  fell  into  their  hands,  says 
Nahum,  like  ripe  fniit}  He  cries  to  Niniveh  to  prepare 
for  the  siege.  ^  Military  authorities  ^  suppose  that  the 
Medes  directed  their  main  attack  upon  the  northern 
corner  of  the  city.  Here  they  would  be  upon  a  level 
with  its  highest  point,  and  would  command  the  water- 
works by  which  most  of  the  moats  were  fed.  Their 
flank,  too,  would  be  protected  by  the  ravines  of  the 
Choser.  Nahum  describes  fighting  in  the  suburbs 
before  the  assault  of  the  walls,  and  it  was  just  here, 
according  to  some  authorities,^  that  the  famous  suburbs 
of  Niniveh  lay,  out  upon  the  canal  and  the  road  to 
Khorsabad.      All    the    open    fighting    which   Nahum 


'    111.  12. 

8  iii.  14. 

'  See  Jones  and  Billerbeck. 

*  Delitzsch  places  the  num  Ti;  of  Gen.  x.  II,  the  "ribit  Nina" 
of  the  inscriptions,  on  the  north-east  of  Niniveh. 


Nahum  ii.,  iii.]     THE  SIEGE  AND  FALL   OF  NINIVEH      loi 

foresees  would  take  place  in  these  outplaces  and  broad 
streets  ^ — the  mustering  of  the  red  ranks, ^  the  prancing 
horses  ^  and  rattling  chariots  ^  and  cavalry  at  the  charge!" 
Beaten  there  the  Assyrians  would  retire  to  the  great 
walls,  and  the  waterworks  would  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
besiegers.  They  would  not  immediately  destroy  these, 
but  in  order  to  bring  their  engines  and  battering-rams 
against  the  walls  they  would  have  to  lay  strong  dams 
across  the  moats  ;  the  eastern  moat  has  actually  been 
found  filled  with  rubbish  in  face  of  a  great  breach  at 
the  north  end  of  its  wall.  This  breach  may  have  been 
effected  not  only  by  the  rams  but  by  directing  upon  the 
wall  the  waters  of  the  canal;  or  farther  south  the  Choser 
itself,  in  its  spring  floods,  may  have  been  confined  by 
the  besiegers  and  swept  in  upon  the  sluices  which 
regulate  its  passage  through  the  eastern  wall  into  the 
city.  To  this  means  tradition  has  assigned  the  capture 
of  Niniveh,*^  and  Nahum  perhaps  foresees  the  possibility 
of  it :  the  gates  of  the  rivers  are  opened,  the  palace  is 
dissolved! 

Now  of  all  this  probable  progress  of  the  siege  Nahum, 
of  course,  does  not  give  us  a  narrative,  for  he  is  writing 
upon  the  eve  of  it,  and  probably,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
Judah,  with  only  such  knowledge  of  the  position  and 
strength  of  Niniveh  as  her  fame  had  scattered  across 
the  world.  The  military  details,  the  muster,  the  fight- 
ing in  the  open,  the  investment,  the  assault,  he  did  not 
need  to  go  to  Assyria  or  to  wait  for  the  fall  of  Niniveh 

»  ii.  4  Eng.,  5  Heb.  =»  Ibid.     LXX. 

2  ii.  3  Eng.,  4  Heb.  *  iii.  2. 

=  iii.  3. 

®  It  is  the  waters  of  the  Tigris  that  the  tradition  avers  to  have 
broken  the  wall ;  but  the  Tigris  itself  runs  in  a  bed  too  low  for  this  : 
it  can  only  have  been  the  Choser,     See  both  Jones  and  Billerbeck. 

'  ii.  6. 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


to  describe  as  he  has  done.  Assyria  herself  (and 
herein  Hes  much  of  the  pathos  of  the  poem)  had  made 
all  Western  Asia  familiar  with  their  horrors  for  the 
last  two  centuries.  As  we  learn  from  the  prophets 
and  now  still  more  from  herself,  Assyria  was  the  great 
Besieger  of  Men.  It  is  siege,  siege,  siege,  which  Amos, 
Hosea  and  Isaiah  tell  their  people  they  shall  feel  :  siege 
and  blockade,  and  that  right  round  the  land  !  It  is  siege, 
irresistible  and  full  of  cruelty,  which  Assyria  records 
as  her  own  glory.  Miles  of  sculpture  are  covered 
with  masses  of  troops  marching  upon  some  Syrian  or 
Median  fortress.  Scaling  ladders  and  enormous  engines 
are  pushed  forward  to  the  walls  under  cover  of  a  shower 
of  arrows.  There  are  assaults  and  breaches,  panic- 
stricken  and  suppliant  defenders.  Streets  and  places 
are  strewn  with  corpses,  men  are  impaled,  women  led 
away  weeping,  children  dashed  against  the  stones.  The 
Jews  had  seen,  had  felt  these  horrors  for  a  hundred 
years,  and  it  is  out  of  their  experience  of  them  that 
Nahum  weaves  his  exultant  predictions.  The  Besieger 
of  the  world  is  at  last  besieged  ;  every  cruelty  he  has 
inflicted  upon  men  is  now  to  be  turned  upon  himself 
Again  and  again  does  Nahum  return  to  the  vivid  details, 
— he  hears  the  very  whips  crack  beneath  the  walls,  and 
the  rattle  of  the  leaping  chariots ;  the  end  is  slaughter, 
dispersion  and  a  dead  waste. ^ 

'  If  the  above  conception  of  chaps,  ii.  and  iii.  be  correct,  then 
there  is  no  need  for  such  a  re-arrangement  of  these  verses  as  has 
been  proposed  by  Jeremias  and  Billerbeck.  In  order  to  produce  a 
continuous  narrative  of  the  progress  of  the  siege,  they  bring  forward 
iii.  12-15  (describing  the  fall  of  the  fortresses  and  gates  of  the  land 
and  the  call  to  the  defence  of  the  city),  and  place  it  immediately  after 
ii.  2,  4  (the  description  of  the  invader)  and  ii.  5-1 1  (the  appearance 
of  chariots  in  the  suburbs  of  the  city,  the  opening  of  the  floodgates, 
the  flight  and  the  spoiling  of  the  city).     But  if  they  believe  that  the 


Nahum  ii.,  iii.]    THE  SIEGE  AND  FALL  OF  NINIVEH      103 

Two  Other  points  remain  to  be  emphasised. 

There  is  a  striking  absence  from  both  chapters  of  any 
reference  to  Israel.^  Jehovah  of  Hosts  is  mentioned 
twice  in  the  same  formula,-  but  otherwise  the  author  does 
not  obtrude  his  nationaUty.  It  is  not  in  Judah's  name 
he  exults,  but  in  that  of  all  the  peoples  of  Western  Asia. 
Niniveh  has  sold  peoples  by  her  harlotries  and  races  by 
her  witchcraft ;  it  is  peoples  that  shall  gaze  upon  her 
nakedness  and  kingdoms  upon  her  shame.  Nahum 
gives  voice  to  no  national  passions,  but  to  the  outraged 
conscience  of  mankind.  We  see  here  another  proof,  not 
only  of  the  large,  human  heart  of  prophecy,  but  of  that 
which  in  the  introduction  to  these  Twelve  Prophets  we 
ventured  to  assign  as  one  of  its  causes.  By  crushing 
all  peoples  to  a  common  level  of  despair,  by  the  universal 
pity  which  her  cruelties  excited,  Assyria  contributed  to 
the  development  in  Israel  of  the  idea  of  a  common 
humanity.' 

The  other  thing  to  be  noticed  is  Nahum's  feeling  of 
the  incoherence  and  mercenariness  of  the  vast  popula- 
tion of  Niniveh.  Niniveh's  command  of  the  world  had 
turned  her  into  a  great  trading  power.  Under  Assur- 
banipal  the  lines  of  ancient  commerce  had  been  diverted 
so  as  to  pass  through  her.     The  immediate  result  was 

original  gave  an  orderly  account  of  the  progress  of  the  siege,  why  do 
they  not  bring  forward  also  iii.  2  f.,  which  describe  the  arrival  of  the 
foe  under  the  city  walls  ?  The  truth  appears  to  be  as  stated  above. 
We  have  really  two  poems  against  Niniveh,  chap.  ii.  and  chap.  iii. 
They  do  not  give  an  orderly  description  of  the  siege,  but  exult  over 
Niniveh's  imminent  downfall,  with  gleams  scattered  here  and  there 
of  how  this  is  to  happen.  Of  these  "impressions"  of  the  coming 
siege  there  are  three,  and  in  the  order  in  which  we  now  have  them 
they  occur  very  naturally  :  ii.  5  ff.,  iii.  2  f ,  and  iii.  12  ff. 

'  ii.  2  goes  with  the  previous  chapter.     See  above,  pp.  94  f. 

2  ii.  13,  iii.  5. 

^  See  above,  Vol.  I.,  Chap.  IV.,  especially  pp.  54  ff. 


104  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

an  enormous  increase  of  population,  such  as  the  world 
had  never  before  seen  within  the  Hmits  of  one  city. 
But  this  had  come  out  of  all  races  and  was  held 
together  only  by  the  greed  of  gain.  What  had  once 
been  a  firm  and  vigorous  nation  of  warriors,  irresistible 
in  their  united  impact  upon  the  world,  was  now  a  loose 
aggregate  of  many  peoples,  without  patriotism,  discipline 
or  sense  of  honour.  Nahum  likens  it  to  a  reservoir  of 
waters,^  which  as  soon  as  it  is  breached  must  scatter, 
and  leave  the  city  bare.  The  Second  Isaiah  said 
the  same  of  Babylon,  to  which  the  bulk  of  Niniveh's 
mercenary  populace  must  have  fled  : — 

Thus  are  they  grown  to  thee,  they  who  did  weary  thee^ 
Traders  of  thine  from  thy  youth  up  ; 
Each  as  he  could  escape  have  they  fled; 
None  is  thy  helper? 

The  prophets  saw  the  truth  about  both  cities.  Their 
vastness  and  their  splendour  were  artificial.  Neither 
of  them,  and  Niniveh  still  less  than  Babylon,  was  a 
natural  centre  for  the  world's  commerce.  When  their 
political  power  fell,  the  great  lines  of  trade,  which  had 
been  twisted  to  their  feet,  drew  back  to  more  natural 
courses,  and  Niniveh  in  especial  became  deserted.  This 
is  the  explanation  of  the  absolute  collapse  of  that 
mighty  city.  Nahum's  foresight,  and  the  very  metaphor 
in  which  he  expressed  it,  were  thoroughly  sound.  The 
population  vanished  like  water.  The  site  bears  Httle 
trace  of  any  disturbance  since  the  ruin  by  the  Medes, 
except  such  as  has  been  inflicted  by  the  weather 
and  the  wandering  tribes  around.     Mosul,    Niniveh's 


Isaiah  xl. — Ixvi,  (Expositor's  Bible),  pp.  197  ff. 


Nahum  ii.,  iii.]     THE  SIEGE  AND  FALL   OF  NINIVEH      105 

representative  to-day,  is  not  built  upon  it,  and  is  but 
a  provincial  town.  The  district  was  never  meant  for 
anything  else. 

The  swift  decay  of  these  ancient  empires  from  the 
climax  of  their  commercial  glory  is  often  employed  as 
a  warning  to  ourselves.  But  the  parallel,  as  the  previous 
paragraphs  suggest,  is  very  far  from  exact.  If  we 
can  lay  aside  for  the  moment  the  greatest  difference 
of  all,  in  religion  and  morals,  there  remain  others 
almost  of  cardinal  importance.  Assyria  and  Babylonia 
were  not  filled,  like  Great  Britain,  with  reproductive 
races,  able  to  colonise  distant  lands,  and  carry  every- 
where the  spirit  which  had  made  them  strong  at  home. 
Still  more,  they  did  not  continue  at  home  to  be  homo- 
geneous. Their  native  forces  were  exhausted  by  long 
and  unceasing  wars.  Their  populations,  especially  in 
their  capitals,  were  very  largely  alien  and  distraught, 
with  nothing  to  hold  them  together  save  their  com- 
mercial interests.  They  were  bound  to  break  up  at 
the  first  disaster.  It  is  true  that  we  are  not  without 
some  risks  of  their  peril.  No  patriot  among  us  can 
observe  without  misgiving  the  large  and  growing  pro- 
portion of  foreigners  in  that  department  of  our  life  from 
which  the  strength  of  our  defence  is  largely  drawn — 
our  merchant  navy.  But  such  a  fact  is  very  far  from 
bringing  our  empire  and  its  chief  cities  into  the  fatal 
condition  of  Niniveh  and  Babylon.  Our  capitals,  our 
commerce,  our  life  as  a  whole  are  still  British  to 
the  core.  If  we  only  be  true  to  our  ideals  of  right- 
eousness and  religion,  if  our  patriotism  continue  moral 
and  sincere,  we  shall  have  the  power  to  absorb  the 
foreign  elements  that  throng  to  us  in  commerce,  and 
stamp  them  with  our  own  spirit. 

We   are   now  ready  to   follow  Nahum's  two   great 


io6  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

poems  delivered  on  the  eve  of  the  Fall  of  Niniveh. 
Probably,  as  we  have  said,  the  first  of  them  has  lost 
its  original  opening.  It  wants  some  notice  at  the 
outset  of  the  object  to  which  it  is  addressed  :  this  is 
indicated  only  by  the  second  personal  pronoun.  Other 
needful  comments  will  be  given  in  footnotes. 

I. 

The  Hammer^  is  come  up  to  thy  face  ! 

Hold  the  rampart !     ^  Keep  watch  on  the  way  ! 

Brace  the  loins  !  ^     Pull  thyself  firmly  together!  * 

The  shields^  of  his  heroes  are  red^ 

The  warriors  are  in  scarlet;  ^ 

Like "'  fire  are  the  ...  ^  of  the  chariots  in  the  day 

of  his  muster, 
And  the  horsemen  ^  are  prancing. 

'  Read  }*2^  with  Wellhausen  (cf.  Siegfried-Stade's  Worterbuclu 
sub  |^-12)  for  }*'*S^,  Breaker  in  pieces.  In  Jer.  li.  20  Babylon  is  also 
called  by  Jehovah  His  |*SPj  Hammer  or  Maid. 

"  Keep  watch,  Wellhausen. 

^  This  may  be  a  military  call  to  attention,  the  converse  of  "  Stand 
at  ease !  " 

*  Heb.  literally :  brace  up  thy  power  exceedingly. 

*  Heb.  singular. 

*  Rev.  ix.  17.  Purple  or  red  was  the  favourite  colour  of  the  Medes. 
The  Assyrians  also  loved  red.  '  Read  2^J<D  for  t^N3. 

*  mi/'D,  the  word  omitted,  is  doubtful;  it  does  not  occur  elsewhere. 
LXX.  rjvlaL;  Vulg.  habence.  Some  have  thought  that  it  means  scythes 
— cf.  the  Arabic  falad,  "to  cut" — but  the  earliest  notice  of  chariots 
armed  with  scythes  is  at  the  battle  of  Cunaxa,  and  in  Jewish  literature 
they  do  not  appear  before  2  Mace.  xiii.  2.  Cf  Jeremias,  op.  cit.,  p.  97, 
where  Billerbeck  suggests  that  the  words  of  Nahum  are  applicable  to 
the  covered  siege-engines,  pictured  on  the  Assyrian  monuments,  from 
which  the  besiegers  flung  torches  on  the  walls  :  cf.  ibid.,  p.  167,  n.  ***. 
But  from  the  parallelism  of  the  verse  it  is  more  probable  that 
ordinary  chariots  are  meant.  The  leading  chariots  were  covered 
with  plates  of  metal  (Billerbeck,  p.  167). 

^  So  LXX.,  reading  D^^^'IS    for  D^Ji^li  of  Heb.  text,  that  means 


Nahumii.,iii.]     THE  SIEGE  AND  FALL   OF  NINIVEH      107 

Through  the  markets  rage  chariots^ 

They  tear  across  the  squares ;  ^ 

The  look  of  them  is  like  torches. 

Like  lightnings  they  dart  to  and  fro? 

He  musters  his  nobles.  .  .  ? 

They  rush  to  the  wall  and  the  mantlet  ^  is  fixed  ! 

The  river-gates  ^  hurst  open,  the  palace  dissolves,^ 

And  Hussah~  is  stripped,  is  brought  forth, 

With  her  maids  sobbing  like  doves. 

Beating  their  breasts. 

fir-trees.  If  the  latter  be  correct,  then  we  should  need  to  suppose 
with  Billerbeck  that  either  the  long  lances  of  the  Aryan  Medes  were 
meant,  or  the  great,  heavy  spears  which  were  thrust  against  the  walls 
by  engines.  We  are  not,  however,  among  these  yet ;  it  appears  to  be 
the  cavalry  and  chariots  in  the  open  that  are  here  described. 

*  Or  broad  places  or  suburbs.     See  above,  pp.  100  f. 
^  See  above,  p.  106,  end  of  n.  8. 

'  Heb.  They  stumble  in  their  goings.  Davidson  holds  this  is  more 
probably  of  the  defenders.  Wellhausen  takes  the  verse  as  of  the 
besiegers.     See  next  note. 

*  "Jlpbri.  Partic.  of  the  verb  to  cover,  hence  covering  thing :  whether 
mantlet  (on  the  side  of  the  besiegers)  or  bulwark  (on  the  side  of  the 
besieged:  cf.  "?]D^^  Isa.  xxii.  8)  is  uncertain.  Billerbeck  says,  if  it  be 
an  article  of  defence,  we  can  read  ver.  5  as  illustrating  the  vanity  of 
the  hurried  defence,  when  the  elements  themselves  break  in  vv.  6 
and  7  (p.  loi  :  cf.  p.  176,  n.  *). 

^  Sluices  (Jeremias)  or  bridge-gates  (Wellhausen)  ? 

^  Or  breaks  into  motion,  \.q.  flight. 

'  3-Vn,  if  a  Hebrew  word,  might  be  Hophal  of  nVi  and  has  been 
taken  to  mean  it  is  determined,  she  (Niniveh)  is  taken  captive. 
Volck  (in  Herzog),  Kleinert,  Orelli  :  it  is  settled.  LXX.  vwda-TacTLS  = 
n^fO.  Vulg.  miles  (as  if  some  form  of  N*nV  ?).  Hitzig  points  it 
n-"^*n,  the  lizard,  Wellhausen  the  toad.  But  this  noun  is  masculine 
(Lev.  xi.  29)  and  the  verbs  feminine.  Davidson  suggests  the  other 
3-"^ri^  fern.,  the  litter  or  palanquin  (Isa.  Ixvi.  20)  :  "in  lieu  of  any- 
thing better  one  might  be  tempted  to  think  that  the  litter  might 
mean  the  woman  or  lady,  just  as  in  Arab,  dhainah  means  a  woman's 
litter  and  then  a  woman."  One  is  also  tempted  to  think  of  ''l-Vn, 
the  beauty.    The  Targ.  has  NH^^D,   the  queen.    From  as  early  as 


io8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

And  Niniveh  /  she  was  like  a  reservoir  of  waters^ 

Her  waters  .  .  } 

And  now  they  flee.     *'  Stand,  stajidf"  but  there  is 

none  to  rally. 
Plunder  silver,  plunder  gold  ! 
Infinite  treasures,  mass  of  all  precious  things! 
Void  and  devoid  and  desolate  ^  is  she. 
Melting  hearts  and  shaking  knees, 
And  anguish  in  all  loins, 
And  nothing  but  faces  full  of  black  fear. ^ 

Where  is  the  Lion^s  den, 
And  the  young  lions'  feeding  ground  *  ? 
Whither  the  Lion  retreated^" 
The  whelps  of  the  Lion,  with  none  to  affray  : 
The  Lion,  who  tore  enough  for  his  whelps^ 
And  strangled  for  his  lionesses. 


at  least  1527  {Latina  Interpretatio  Xantis  Pagnini  Lucensis  revised 
and  edited  for  the  Plantin  Bible,  1615)  the  word  has  been  taken 
by  a  series  of  scholars  as  a  proper  name,  Hussab,  So  Ewald  and 
others.  It  may  be  an  Assyrian  word,  like  some  others  in  Nahum. 
Perhaps,  again,  the  text  is  corrupt. 

Mr,  Paul  Ruben  (^Academy,  March  7th,  1896)  has  proposed  instead 
of  nnPrn,  is  brought  forth,  to  read  nTTlI^n,  and  to  translate  it  by 
analogy  of  the  Assyrian  "  etellu,"  fern,  "etellitu"  =  great  or  exalted, 
The  Lady.  The  line  would  then  run  Httssab,  the  lady,  is  stripped. 
(With  n?nrn  Cheyne,  Academy,  June  2 1st,  1896,  compares  Hvnr, 
which,  he  suggests,  is  "  Yahwe  is  great"  or  "is  lord.") 

'  Heb.  N\l  ^p^D  for  N*>n  1t>'{<  '•0''D,  from  days  she  was.  A.V.  is  of 
old.  R.V.  hath  been  of  old,  and  Marg. /rof«  the  days  that  she  hath  been. 
LXX.  her  waters,  T't'*)^'')^,     On  waters  fleeing,  cf.  Ps.  civ.  7. 

^  Bukah,  umebukah,  umebullakah.  Ewald  :  desert  and  desolation 
and  devastation.     The  adj.  are  feminine. 

'  Literally:  and  the  faces  of  all  them  gather  lividtiess. 

*  For  ni;"lD  Wellhausen  reads  HiyD,  cave  or  hold. 

=  LXX.,  reading  Nui'  for  N'^D^. 


Nahumii.,iii.]     THK  SIEGE  AND  FALL   OE  NtNIVEH      109 


And  he  filled  his  pits  with  prey^ 
And  his  dens  with  rapine. 

Lo,  I  am  at  thee  {oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts)  : 

I  will  put  up  thy  .  .  }  inflames. 

The  sword  shall  devour  thy  young  lions; 

I  will  cut  off  from  the  earth  thy  rapine, 

And  the  noise  of  thine  envoys  shall  no  more  be  heard. 

2. 

Woe  to  the  City  of  Blood, 

All  of  her  guile  y  robbery-full,  ceaseless  rapine! 

Hark  the  whip, 

And  the  rumbling  of  the  wheel, 

And  horses  galloping. 

And  the  rattling  dance  of  the  chariot  I  "^ 

Cavalry  at  the  charge,^  and  flash  of  sabres. 

And  lightning  of  lances, 

Mass  of  slain  and  weight  of  corpses, 

Endless  dead  bodies — 

They  stumble  on  their  dead  ! 

— For  the  manifold  harlotries  of  the  Harlot, 

The  well-favoured,  mistress  of  charms. 

She  who  sold  nations  with  her  harlotries 

And  races  by  her  witchcrafts  ! 

Lo,  I  am  at  thee  (oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts)  : 
I  will  uncover  thy  skirts  to  thy  face  ;  * 

^  Heb.  her  chariots.     LXX.  and  Syr.  suggest  thy  mass  or  multitude, 
HDll.     Davidson  suggests  thy  lair,  HDVll. 

*  Literally  and  the  chariot  dancing,  but  the  word,  merakedah,  has 
a  rattle  in  it. 

3  Doubtful,  TOVip,     LXX.  ava^alvovros, 

*  Jeremias  (104)  shows   how   the   Assyrians   did    this   to   female 
captives. 


no  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Give  nations  to  look  on  thy  nakedness^ 
And  kingdoms  upon  thy  shame; 
Will  have  thee  pelted  with  filth,  and  disgrace  thee, 
And  set  thee  for  a  gazingstock  ; 
So  that  every  one  seeing  thee  shall  shrink  from  thee 
and  say, 

'*  Shattered  is  Niniveh — who  will  pity  her? 
Whence  shall  I  seek  for  comforters  to  thee  ?  " 

Shalt  thou  be  better  than  No-Amon} 

Which  sat  upon  the  Nile  streams'^ — waters   were 

round  her — 
Whose  rampart  was  the  sea^  and  waters  her  wall  ?  * 
Kush  was  her  strength  and  Misraim  without  end; 
Phut  and  the  Lybians  were  there  to  assist  her.^ 
Even  she  was  for  exile,  she  went  to  captivity : 
Even    her  children    were   dashed    on    every  street 

corner; 
For  her  nobles  they  cast  lots. 
And  all  her  great  men  were  fastened  with  fetters. 

Thou  too  shall  stagger,^  shall  grow  faint ; 
Thou  too  shall  seek  help  from  ^  the  foe  ! 

^  Jer.  xlvi.  25:  /  will  punish  Anion  at  No.  Ezek.  xxx.  14-16: 
.  .  .  judgments  in  No.  .  .  .  I  will  cut  off  No-Amort  (Heb.  and  A.V. 
multitude  0/ No,  reading  ptDH  ;  so  also  LXX.  t6  -n-XijOos  for  \)J2ii)  .  .  . 
and  No  shall  be  broken  up.  It  is  Thebes,  the  Egyptian  name  of  which 
was  Nu-Amen.  The  god  Amen  had  his  temple  there  :  Herod.  I.  182, 
II.  42.  Nahum  refers  to  Assurbanipal's  account  of  the  fall  of  Thebes. 
See  above,  p.  11. 

2  Dn^^^^.     pi.  of  the  word  for  Nile. 
'  Arabs  still  call  the  Nile  the  sea. 

*  So  LXX.,  reading  Dp  for  Heb.  D*p. 

3  So  LXX. ;  Heb.  thee. 

*  Heb.  be  drunken. 

'  I.e.  against,  because  of. 


Nahumii.,iii.]    THE  SIEGE  AND  FALL  OF  NINIVEH      ii! 

All  thy  fortresses  are  fig-trees  with  figs  early-ripe: 
Be  they  shaken  they  fall  on  the  mouth  of  the  eater. 
Lo,  thy  folk  are  but  women  in  thy  midst :  ^ 
To  thy  foes  the  gates  of  thy  land  fly  open; 
Fire  has  devoured  thy  bars. 

Draw  thee  water  for  siege,  strengthen  thy  forts  ! 
Get  thee  down  to  the  mud,  and  tramp  in  the  clay  ! 
Grip  fast  the  brick-mould  I 
There  fire  consumes  thee,  the  sword  cuts  thee  ojf? 
Make  thyself  many  as  a  locust  swarm, 
Many  as  grasshoppers. 

Multiply  thy  traders  more  than  heaven^s  stars, 
— The  locusts  break  off^  and  fly  away. 
Thy  .  .  .*  are  as  locusts  and  thy  .  .  .  as  grass- 
hoppers, 
That  hive  in  the  hedges  in  the  cold  of  the  day :  ^ 
The  sun  is  risen,  they  are  fled. 
And  one  knows  not  the  place  where  they  be. 

1  Jer.  1.  37,  li.  30. 

-  Heb.  and  LXX.  add  devour  thee  like  the  locust,  probably  a  gloss. 

'  Cf.  Jer.  ix,  33.  Some  take  it  of  the  locusts  stripping  the  skin 
which  confines  their  wings  :  Davidson. 

■■  *]"*1TJD.  A.V.  thy  crowned  ones ;  but  perhaps  like  its  neighbour 
an  Aesyrian  word,  meaning  we  know  not  what.  Wellhausen  reads 
']''"ltDD,  LXX.  6  (TVfMfiiKTds  a-oO  (applied  in  Deut.  xxiii.  3  and  Zech.  ix.  6 
to  the  offspring  of  a  mixed  marriage  between  an  Israelite  and  a 
Gentile),  deine  Mischlinge  :  a  term  of  contempt  for  the  floating  foreign 
or  semi-foreign  population  which  filled  Niniveh  and  was  ready  to  fly 
at  sight  of  danger.  Similarly  Wellhausen  takes  the  second  term, 
"IDQD.  This,  which  occurs  also  in  Jer.  li.  27,  appears  to  be  some 
kind  of  official.  In  Assyrian  dupsar  is  scribe,  which  may,  like 
Heb.  "IDK^,  have  been  applied  to  any  high  official.  See  Schrader, 
K.A.T.,  Eng.  Tr.,  I.  141,  II.  118.  See  also  Fried.  Delitzsch,  Wo  lag 
Parad.y  p.  142.  The  name  and  office  were  ancient.  Such  Babylonian 
officials  are  mentioned  in  the  Tell  el  Amarna  letters  as  present  at  the 
Egyptian  court.  ^  Heb.  day  of  cold. 


ii2  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Asleep  are  thy  shepherds j  O  king  of  Assyria, 

Thy  nobles  do  slumber;  ^ 

Thy  people  are  strewn  on  the  mountains, 

Without  any  to  gather. 

There  is  no  healing  of  thy  wreck, 

Fatal  thy  wound  ! 

All  who  hear  the  bruit  of  thee  shall  clap  the  hand  at 

thee, 
For  upon  whom  hath  not  thy  cruelty  passed  without 

ceasing  ? 

'  i:3K^\  divell,  is  the  Heb.  reading.    But  LXX.  13£^'^  iKoifMiaev.    Sleep 
must  be  taken  in  the  sense  of  death :  cf.  Jer.  li.  39,  57  ;  Isa.  xiv.  18. 


HABAKKUK 


VOL.  II.  113 


Upon  my  watch-tower  will  I  stand, 
And  take  up  my  post  on  the  ramparf% 
I  ivill  watch  to  see  what  He  will  say  to  me, 
And  ivhat  answer  I  get  back  to  my  plea. 

The  righteous  shall  live  by  his  faithfulness. 


The  beginning  of  speculation  in  Israel." 


114 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  BOOK  OF  HABAKKUK 

AS  it  has  reached  us,  the  Book  of  Habakkuk,  under 
the  title  The  Oracle  which  Habakkuk  the  prophet 
received  by  vision^  consists  of  three  chapters,  which  fall 
into  three  sections.  First:  chap.  i.  2 — ii.  4  (or  8),  a 
piece  in  dramatic  form ;  the  prophet  lifts  his  voice  to 
God  against  the  wrong  and  violence  of  which  his  whole 
horizon  is  full,  and  God  sends  him  answer.  Second: 
chap.  ii.  5  (or  9) — 20,  a  taunt-song  in  a  series  of  Woes 
upon  the  wrong-doer.  Third:  chap,  iii.,  part  psalm, 
part  prayer,  descriptive  of  a  Theophany  and  expressive 
of  Israel's  faith  in  their  God.  Of  these  three  sections 
no  one  doubts  the  authenticity  of  the  first ;  opinion  is 
divided  about  the  second]  about  the  third  there  is 
a  growing  agreement  that  it  is  not  a  genuine  work  of 
Habakkuk,  but  a  poem  from  a  period  after  the  Exile. 

I.  Chap.  I.  2— II.  4  (or  8). 

Yet  it  is  the  first  piece  which  raises  the  most  difficult 
questions.  All  ^  admit  that  it  is  to  be  dated  somewhere 
along  the  line  of  Jeremiah's  long  career,  c.  627 — 586. 
There  is  no  doubt  about  the  general  trend  of  the 
argument:  it  is  a  plaint  to  God  on  the  sufferings  of 

>  Except  one  or  two  critics  who  place  it  in  Manasseh's  reign. 
See  below. 

"5 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


the  righteous  under  tyranny,  with  God's  answer.  But 
the  order  and  connection  of  the  paragraphs  of  the 
argument  are  not  clear.  There  is  also  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  who  the  tyrant  is — native,  Assyrian  or 
Chaldee ;  and  this  leads  to  a  difference,  of  course, 
about  the  date,  which  ranges  from  the  early  years  of 
Josiah  to  the  end  of  Jehoiakim's  reign,  or  from  about 
630  to  597. 

As  the  verses  he,  their  argument  is  this.    In  chap.  i. 
2-4  Habakkuk  asks  the  Lord  how  long  the  wicked  are 
to  oppress  the  righteous,  to  the  paralysing  of  the  Torah, 
or  Revelation  of  His  Law,  and  the  making  futile  of 
judgment.     For  answer  the  Lord  tells  him,  vv.   5-1 1, 
to   look   round   among   the   heathen  :  He  is  about  to 
raise    up    the    Chaldees   to    do    His   work,    a   people 
swift,  self-reliant,  irresistible.     Upon  which  Habakkuk 
resumes  his  question,  vv.    12-17,  how  long  will   God 
suffer  a  tyrant  who   sweeps  up  the  peoples  into   his 
net  like  fish  ?     Is  he  to  go  on  with  this  for  ever  ?     In 
ii.  I  Habakkuk  prepares  for  an  answer,  which  comes  in 
ii.  2,  3,  4:  let  the  prophet  wait  for  the  vision  though 
it  tarries;    the  proud   oppressor   cannot   last,   but  the 
righteous  shall  live  by  his  constancy,  or  faithfulness. 
The   difficulties   are   these.      Who   are   the  wicked 
oppressors  in  chap.  i.   2-4  ?     Are  they  Jews,  or  some 
heathen  nation  ?     And  what  is  the  connection  between 
vv.    1-4  and    vv.    5-1 1?     Are  the  Chaldees,   who  are 
described  in  the  latter,  raised  up  to  punish  the  tyrant 
complained  against  in  the  former  ?     To  these  questions 
three  different  sets  of  answers  have  been  given. 

First:  the  great  majority  of  critics  take  the  wrong 
complained  of  in  vv.  2-4  to  be  wrong  done  by  unjust 
and  cruel  Jews  to  their  countrymen,  that  is,  civic 
disorder   and   violence,   and  believe  that   in   vv.   5-1 1 


THE  BOOK  OF  HABAKKUK  117 

Jehovah  is  represented  as  raising  up  the  Chaldees  to 
punish  the  sin  of  Judah — a  message  which  is  pretty  much 
the  same  as  Jeremiah's.     But  Habakkuk  goes  further  : 
the  Chaldees  themselves  with  their  cruelties  aggravate 
his  problem,  how  God  can  suffer  wrong,  and  he  appeals 
again  to  God,  vv.  12-17.     Are  the  Chaldees  to  be  allowed 
to  devastate  for  ever  ?     The  answer  is  given,  as  above, 
in  chap.  ii.  1-4.     Such  is  practically  the  view  of  Pusey, 
Delitzsch,   Kleinert,    Kuenen,    Sinker,^   Driver,    Orelli, 
Kirkpatrick,    Wildeboer   and    Davidson,    a   formidable 
league,  and  Davidson  says  '*  this  is  the  most  natural 
sense  of  the  verses  and  of  the  words  used  in  them." 
But   these    scholars    differ    as   to    the    date.     Pusey, 
Delitzsch  and  Volck  take  the  whole  passage  from  i.  5 
as  prediction,  and  date  it  from  before  the  rise  of  the 
Chaldee  power  in  625,  attributing  the  internal  wrongs 
of  Judah  described  in  vv.  2-4  to  Manasseh's  reign  or 
the   early   years   of  Josiah.^      But    the    rest,    on   the 
grounds  that   the  prophet   shows  some  experience  of 
the  Chaldean  methods  of  warfare,  and  that  the  account 
of  the  internal  disorder  in  Judah  does  not  suit  Josiah's 
reign,  bring  the  passage  down  to  the  reign  of  Jehoiakim, 
608 — 598,  or  of  Jehoiachin,   597.     Kleinert  and  Von 

'  See  next  note. 

^  So  Pusey.  Delitzsch  in  his  commentary  on  Habakkuk,  1843, 
preferred  Josiah's  reign,  but  in  his  O.  T.  Hist,  of  Redemption,  1881, 
p.  226,  Manasseh's.  Volck  (in  Herzog,  Real  Encyc.,"^  art.  "  Habakkuk," 
1879),  assuming  that  Habakkuk  is  quoted  both  by  Zephaniah  (see 
above,  p.  39,  n.)  and  Jeremiah,  places  him  before  these.  Sinker  {The 
Psalm  of  Habakkuk :  see  below,  p.  127,  n.  2)  deems  "the  prophecy, 
taken  as  a  whole,"  to  bring  "before  us  the  threat  of  the  Chaldean 
invasion,  the  horrors  that  follow  in  its  train,"  etc.,  with  a  vision  of  the 
day  "when  the  Chaldean  host  itself,  its  work  done,  falls  beneath 
a  mightier  foe."  He  fixes  the  date  either  in  the  concluding  years 
of  Manasseh's  reign,  or  the  opening  years  of  that  of  Josiah 
(Preface,   1-4). 


Ii8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Orelli  date  it  before  the  battle  of  Carchemish,  506, 
in  which  the  Chaldean  Nebuchadrezzar  wrested  from 
Egypt  the  Empire  of  the  Western  Asia,  on  the  ground 
that  after  that  Habakkuk  could  not  have  called  a  Chal- 
dean invasion  of  Judah  incredible  (i.  5).  But  Kuenen, 
Driver,  Kirkpatrick,  Wildeboer  and  Davidson  date  it 
after  Carchemish.  To  Driver  it  must  be  immediately 
after,  and  before  Judah  became  alarmed  at  the  conse- 
quences to  herself.  To  Davidson  the  description  of  the 
Chaldeans  "is  scarcely  conceivable  before  the  battle/' 
"  hardly  one  would  think  before  the  deportation  of  the 
people  under  Jehoiachin."  ^  This  also  is  Kuenen's 
view,  who  thinks  that  Judah  must  have  suffered  at 
least  the  first  Chaldean  raids,  and  he  explains  the  use 
of  an  undoubted  future  in  chap.  i.  5,  Zo,  I  am  about  to 
raise  up  the  Chaldeans,  as  due  to  the  prophet's  pre- 
dilection for  a  dramatic  style.  "  He  sets  himself  in  the 
past,  and  represents  the  already  experienced  chastise- 
ment [of  Judah]  as  having  been  then  announced  by 
Jehovah.  His  contemporaries  could  not  have  mistaken 
his  meaning." 

Second:  others,  however,  deny  that  chap.  i.  2-4  refers 
to  the  internal  disorder  of  Judah,  except  as  the  effect 
of  foreign  tyranny.  The  righteous  mentioned  there 
are  Israel  as  a  whole,  the  wicked  their  heathen  oppres- 
sors. So  Hitzig,  Ewald,  Konig  and  practically  Smend. 
Ewald  is  so  clear  that  Habakkuk  ascribes  no  sin  to 
Judah,  that  he  says  we  might  be  led  by  this  to  assign 
the  prophecy  to  the  reign  of  the  righteous  Josiah  ;  but 
he  prefers,  because  of  the  vivid  sense  which  the  prophet 
betrays  of  actual  experience  of  the  Chaldees,  to  date  the 


'  Pages   53,    49.       Kirkpatrick    (Smith's   Did.    of  the   Bible^^   art. 
Habakkuk,"  1893)  P^ts  it  not  later  than  the  sixth  year  of  Jehoiakim. 


THE  BOOK  OF  HABAKKUK  119 

passage  from  the  reign  of  Jehoiakim,  and  to  explain 
Habakkuk's  silence  about  his  people's  sinfulness  as  due 
to  his  overwhelming  impression  of  Chaldean  cruelty. 
Konig^  takes  vv.  2-4  as  a  general  complaint  of  the 
violence  that  fills  the  prophet's  day,  and  vv.  5-1 1  as 
a  detailed  description  of  the  Chaldeans,  the  instru- 
ments of  this  violence.  Vv.  5-1 1,  therefore,  give  not 
the  judgment  upon  the  wrongs  described  in  vv.  2-4, 
but  the  explanation  of  them.  Lebanon  is  already 
wasted  by  the  Chaldeans  (ii.  17)  ;  therefore  the  whole 
prophecy  must  be  assigned  to  the  days  of  Jehoiakim. 
Giesebrecht  ^  and  Wellhausen  adhere  to  the  view  that 
no  sins  of  Judah  are  mentioned,  but  that  the  righteous 
and  wicked  of  chap.  i.  4  are  the  same  as  in  ver.  13, 
viz.  Israel  and  a  heathen  tyrant.  But  this  leads  them 
to  dispute  that  the  present  order  of  the  paragraphs  of 
the  prophecy  is  the  right  one.  In  chap.  i.  5  the 
Chaldeans  are  represented  as  about  to  be  raised  up 
for  the  first  time,  although  their  violence  has  already 
been  described  in  vv.  1-4,  and  in  vv.  12-17  these  are 
already  in  full  career.  Moreover  ver.  12  follows  on 
naturally  to  ver.  4.  Accordingly  these  critics  would 
remove  the  section  vv.  5-1 1.  Giesebrecht  prefixes  it 
to  ver.  I,  and  dates  the  whole  passage  from  the  Exile. 
Wellhausen  calls  5-1 1  an  older  passage  than  the  rest 
of  the  prophecy,  and  removes  it  altogether  as  not 
Habakkuk's.  To  the  latter  he  assigns  what  remains, 
i.  1-4,  12-17,  ii.  1-5,  and  dates  it  from  the  reign  of 
Jehoiakim.^ 

Third:  from  each  of  these  groups  of  critics  Budde  of 
Strasburg  borrows  something,  but  so  as  to  construct  an 


*  Einl.  in  das  A.  T.  -  Beitrdge  siir  Jesaiakritik,  1890,  pp.  197  f. 

'  See  Further  Note  on  p.  128, 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


arrangement  of  the  verses,  and  to  reach  a  date,  for  the 
whole,  from  which  both  differ.^  With  Hitzig,  Ewald, 
Konig,  Smend,  Giesebrecht  and  Wellhausen  he  agrees 
that  the  violence  complained  of  in  i.  2-4  is  that  in- 
flicted by  a  heathen  oppressor,  the  wicked^  on  the  Jewish 
nation,  the  righteous.  But  with  Kuenen  and  others 
he  holds  that  the  Chaldeans  are  raised  up,  according 
to  i.  5-1 1,  to  punish  the  violence  complained  of  in  i.  2-4 
and  again  in  i.  12-17.  In  these  verses  it  is  the 
ravages  of  another  heathen  power  than  the  Chaldeans 
which  Budde  descries.  The  Chaldeans  are  still  to 
come,  and  cannot  be  the  same  as  the  devastator  whose 
long  continued  tyranny  is  described  in  i.  12-17.  They 
are  rather  the  power  which  is  to  punish  him.  He  can 
only  be  the  Assyrian.  But  if  that  be  so,  the  proper 
place  for  the  passage,  i.  5-1 1,  which  describes  the  rise 
of  the  Chaldeans  must  be  after  the  description  of  the 
Assyrian  ravages  in  i.  12-17,  ^^<^  i^i  the  body  of  God's 
answer  to  the  prophet  which  we  find  in  ii.  2  ff.  Budde, 
therefore,  places  i.  5-1 1  after  ii.  2-4.  But  if  the 
Chaldeans  are  still  to  come,  and  Budde  thinks  that 
they  are  described  vaguely  and  with  a  good  deal  of 
imagination,  the  prophecy  thus  arranged  must  fall 
somewhere  between  625,  when  Nabopolassar  the 
Chaldean  made  himself  independent  of  Assyria  and 
King  of  Babylon,  and  607,  when  Assyria  fell.  That 
the  prophet  calls  Judah  righteous  is  proof  that  he  wrote 
after  the  great  Reform  of  62 1 ;  hence,  too,  his  reference 
to  Torah  and  Mishpat  (i.  4),  and  his  complaint  of  the 
obstacles  which  Assyrian  supremacy  presented  to  their 
free  course.  As  the  Assyrian  yoke  appears  not  to 
have  been  felt  anywhere  in  Judah  by  608,  Budde  would 


Stttdien  it.  Kritiken  for  1893. 


THE  BOOK  OF  HABAKKUK  I2i 

fix  the  exact  date  of  Habakkuk's  prophecy  about  615. 
To  these  conclusions  of  Budde  Cornill,  who  in  189 1 
had  very  confidently  assigned  the  prophecy  of  Habakkuk 
to  the  reign  of  Jehoiakim,  gave  his  adherence  in  1896.^ 

Budde's  very  able  and  ingenious  argument  has  been  j      '     . 

subjected  to  a  searching  criticism  by  Professor  David-  (  J, 

son,  who  emphasises  first  the  difficulty  of  accounting 
for  the  transposition  of  chap.  i.  5-1 1  from  what  Budde 
alleges  to  have  been  its  original  place  after  ii.  4  to  its 
present  position  in  chap,  i."  He  points  out  that  if 
chap.  i.  2-4  and  12-17  and  ii.  5  ff.  refer  to  the  Assyrian, 
it  is  strange  the  latter  is  not  once  mentioned.  Again, 
by  615  we  may  infer  (though  we  know  little  of 
Assyrian  history  at  this  time)  that  the  Assyrian's  hold 
on  Judah  was  already  too  relaxed  for  the  prophet  to 
impute  to  him  power  to  hinder  the  Law,  especially  as 
Josiah  had  begun  to  carry  his  reforms  into  the  northern 
kingdom  ;  and  the  knowledge  of  the  Chaldeans  dis- 
played in  i.  5-1 1  is  too  fresh  and  detailed^  to  suit  so 
early  a  date  :  it  was  possible  only  after  the  battle  of 
Carchemish.  And  again,  it  is  improbable  that  we  have 
two  different  nations,  as  Budde  thinks,  described  by  the 


*  Cf.  the  opening  of  §  30  in  the  first  edition  of  his  Einleitung  with 
that  of  §  34  in  the  third  and  fourth  editions. 

^  Budde's  explanation  of  this  is,  that  to  the  later  editors  of  the 
book,  long  after  the  Babylonian  destruction  of  Jews,  it  was 
incredible  that  the  Chaldean  should  be  represented  as  the  deliverer 
of  Israel,  and  so  the  account  of  him  was  placed  where,  while  his  call 
to  punish  Israel  for  her  sins  was  not  emphasised,  he  should  be  pictured 
as  destined  to  doom;  and  so  the  prophecy  originally  referring  to  the 
Assyrian  was  read  of  him.  "This  is  possible,"  says  Davidson,  "if 
it  be  true  criticism  is  not  without  its  romance." 

'  This  in  opposition  to  Budde's  statement  that  the  description 
of  the  Chaldeans  in  i.  5-1 1  "ist  eine  phantastische  Schilderung " 
(p.  387). 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


very  similar  phrases  in  i.  ii,  his  own  power  becomes 
his  god,  and  in  i.  i6,  he  sacrifices  to  his  net.  Again, 
chap.  i.  5-1 1  would  not  read  quite  naturally  after 
chap.  ii.  4.  And  in  the  woes  pronounced  on  the 
oppressor  it  is  not  one  nation,  the  Chaldeans,  which 
are  to  spoil  him,  but  all  the  remnant  of  the  peoples 
(ii.  7,  8). 

These  objections  are  not  inconsiderable.  But  are 
they  conclusive  ?  And  if  not,  is  any  of  the  other 
theories  of  the  prophecy  less  beset  with  difficulties  ? 

The  objections  are  scarcely  conclusive.  We  have  no 
proof  that  the  power  of  Assyria  was  altogether  removed 
from  Judah  by  615  ;  on  the  contrary,  even  in  608 
Assyria  was  still  the  power  with  which  Egypt  went 
forth  to  contend  for  the  empire  of  the  world.  Seven 
years  earlier  her  hand  may  well  have  been  strong  upon 
Palestine.  Again,  by  615  the  Chaldeans,  a  people 
famous  in  Western  Asia  for  a  long  time,  had  been  ten 
years  independent :  men  in  Palestine  may  have  been 
familiar  with  their  methods  of  warfare ;  at  least  it  is 
impossible  to  say  they  were  not.^  There  is  more 
weight  in  the  objection  drawn  from  the  absence  of  the 
name  of  Assyria  from  all  of  the  passages  which  Budde 
alleges  describe  it ;  nor  do  we  get  over  all  difficulties 
of  text  by  inserting  i.  5-1 1  between  ii.  4  and  5.  Besides, 
how  does  Budde  explain  i.  12b  on  the  theory  that  it 
means  Assyria  ?  Is  the  clause  not  premature  at  that 
point  ?  Does  he  propose  to  elide  it,  like  Wellhausen  ? 
And  in  any  case    an    erroneous    transposition  of  the 


'  It  is,  however,  a  serious  question  whether  it  would  be  possible 
in  615  to  describe  the  Chaldeans  as  a  nation  that  traversed  the  breadth 
of  the  earth  to  occupy  dwelling-places  that  were  not  his  oivn  (i.  6).  This 
suits  better  after  the  battle  of  Carchemish. 


THE  BOOK  OF  HABAKKUK  123 

original  is  impossible  to  prove  and  difficult  to  account 
for.i 

But  have  not  the  other  theories  of  the  Book  of 
Habakkuk  equally  great  difficulties  ?  Surely,  we  can- 
not say  that  the  righteous  and  the  wicked  in  i.  4  mean 
something  different  from  what  they  do  in  i.  13?  But 
if  this  is  impossible  the  construction  of  the  book 
supported  by  the  great  majority  of  critics^  falls  to  the 
ground.  Professor  Davidson  justly  says  that  it  has 
"  something  artificial  in  it  "  and  **  puts  a  strain  on  the 
nat^iral  sei^se."  ^  How  can  the  Chaldeans  be  described 
in  i.  5  diS  just  about  to  be  raised  up,  and  in  14-17  as 
already  for  a  long  time  the  devastators  of  earth  ? 
Ewald's,  Hitzig's  and  Konig's  views  *  are  equally  beset 
by  these  difficulties  ;  Konig's  exposition  also  "  strains 
the  natural  sense."  Everything,  in  fact,  points  to  i.  5-1 1 
being  out  of  its  proper  place ;  it  is  no  wonder  that 
Giesebrecht,  Wellhausen  and  Budde  independently 
arrived  at  this  conclusion.^  Whether  Budde  be  right 
in  inserting  i.  5-1 1  after  ii.  4,  there  can  be  httle  doubt 
of  the  correctness  of  his  views  that  i.  12-17  describe 
a  heathen  oppressor  who  is  not  the  Chaldeans.  Budde 
says  this  oppressor  is  Assyria.  Can  he  be  any  one 
else?  From  608  to  605  Judah  was  sorely  beset  by 
Egypt,  who  had  overrun  all  Syria  up  to  the  Euphrates. 
The  Egyptians  killed  Josiah,  deposed  his  successor,  and 
put  their  own  vassal  under  a  very  heavy  tribute  ;  gold 
and  silver  were  exacted  of  the  people  of  the  land:  the 
picture   of  distress  in  i.   1-4  might  easily  be   that    of 

'  See  above,  p.  121,  n.  2.  ^  Pages  49  and  50. 

^  See  above,  pp.  114  ff.  *  See  above,  pp.  118  f. 

^  Wellhausen  in  1873  (see  p.  661);  Giesebrecht  in  1 890;  Budde 
in  1892,  before  he  had  seen  the  opinions  of  either  of  the  others  (see 
Stud,  tmd  Krit.,  1893,  p.  386,  n.  2). 


124  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Judah  in  these  three  terrible  years.  And  if  we  assigned 
the  prophecy  to  them,  we  should  certainly  give  it  a 
date  at  which  the  knowledge  of  the  Chaldeans  ex- 
pressed in  i.  5-1 1  was  more  probable  than  at  Budde's 
date  of  615.  But  then  does  the  description  in  chap, 
i.  14-17  suit  Egypt  so  well  as  it  does  Assyria?  We 
can  hardly  affirm  this,  until  we  know  more  of  what 
Egypt  did  in  those  days,  but  it  is  very  probable. 

Therefore,  the  theory  supported  by  the  majority 
of  critics  being  unnatural,  we  are,  with  our  present 
meagre  knowledge  of  the  time,  flung  back  upon  Budde's 
interpretation  that  the  prophet  in  i.  2 — ii.  4  appeals 
from  oppression  by  a  heathen  power,  which  is  not  the 
Chaldean,  but  upon  which  the  Chaldean  shall  bring 
the  just  vengeance  of  God.  The  tyrant  is  either 
Assyria  up  to  about  615  or  Egypt  from  608  to  605, 
and  there  is  not  a  little  to  be  said  for  the  latter  date. 

In  arriving  at  so  uncertain  a  conclusion  about  i. — ii. 
4,  we  have  but  these  consolations,  that  no  other  is 
possible  in  our  present  knowledge,  and  that  the  un- 
certainty will  not  hamper  us  much  in  our  appreciation 
of  Habakkuk's  spiritual  attitude  and  poetic  gifts.-^ 

2.  Chap.  II.  5-20. 

The  dramatic  piece  i.  2 — ii.  4  is  succeeded  by  a  series 
of  fine  taunt-songs,  starting  after  an  introduction  from 
6b,  then  9,  11,  15  and  (18)  19,  and  each  opening  with 


*  Cornill  quotes  a  rearrangement  of  chaps,  i.,  ii.,  by  Rothstein, 
who  takes  i.  2-4,  12  a,  13,  ii.  1-3,  4,  $  a,  i.  6-10,  14,  15  a,  ii.  6  6, 
7,  9,  \oab^,  II,  15,  16,  19,  18,  as  an  oracle  against  Jehoiakim  and 
the  godless  in  Israel  about  605,  which  during  the  Exile  was  worked 
up  into  the  present  oracle  against  Babylon.  Cornill  esteems  it 
"  too  complicated."  Budde  (Expositor,  1895,  pp.  372  ff.)  and  Nowack 
hold  it  untenable. 


THE  BOOK  OF  HABAKKUK  125 

Woe  I  Their  subject  is,  if  we  take  Budde's  interpreta- 
tion of  the  dramatic  piece,  the  Assyrian  and  not  the 
Chaldean  ^  tyrant.  The  text,  as  we  shall  see  when  we 
come  to  it,  is  corrupt.  Some  words  are  manifestly 
wrong,  and  the  rhythm  must  have  suffered  beyond 
restoration.  In  all  probability  these  fine  lyric  Woes, 
or  at  least  as  many  of  them  as  are  authentic — for  there 
is  doubt  about  one  or  two — were  of  equal  length. 
Whether  they  all  originally  had  the  refrain  now 
attached  to  two  is  more  doubtful. 

Hitzig  suspected  the  authenticity  of  some  parts  of 
this  series  of  songs.  Stade  ^  and  Kuenen  have  gone 
further  and  denied  the  genuineness  of  vv.  9-20.  But 
this  is  with  little  reason.  As  Budde  says,  a  series 
of  Woes  was  to  be  expected  here  by  a  prophet  who 
follows  so  much  the  example  of  Isaiah.^  In  spite  of 
Kuenen's  objection,  vv.  9-1 1  would  not  be  strange 
of  the  Chaldean,  but  they  suit  the  Assyrian  better. 
Vv.  12-14  ^^^  doubtful:  12  recalls  Micah  iii.  10; 
13  is  a  repetition  of  Jer.  li.  58;  14  is  a  variant  of 
Isa.  xi.  9.  Very  Hkely  Jer.  li.  58,  a  late  passage,  is 
borrowed  from  this  passage ;  yet  the  addition  used 
here,  Are  not  these  things  ^  from  the  Lord  of  Hosts  ? 
looks  as  if  it  noted  a  citation.  Vv.  15-17  are  very 
suitable  to  the  Assyrian  ;  there  is  no  reason  to  take 
them  from  Habakkuk.^  The  final  song,  vv.  18  and  19, 
has  its  Woe  at  the  beginning  of  its  second  verse, 
and  closely  resembles  the  language  of  later  prophets.^ 

*  As  of  course  was  universally  supposed  according  to  either  of  the 
other  two  interpretations  given  above. 

2  Z.A.T.W.,  1884,  p.  154. 

3  Cf.  Isa.  V.  SfF.  (x.  1-4),  etc. 

*  So  LXX. 

*  Cf.  Davidson,  p.  56,  and  Budde,  p.  391,  who  allows  9-1 1  and  15-17. 
^  E.g.  Isa.  xl.  18  ff,,  xliv.   9  ff.,  xlvi.   5  ff.,  etc.      On   this  ground 


126  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Moreover  the  refrain  forms  a  suitable  close  at  the  end 
of  ver.  17.  Ver.  20  is  a  quotation  from  Zephaniah,^ 
perhaps  another  sign  of  the  composite  character  of  the 
end  of  this  chapter.  Some  take  it  to  have  been  inserted 
as  an  introduction  to  the  theophany  in  chap.  iii. 

Smend  has  drawn  up  a  defence  ^  of  the  whole  passage, 
ii.  9-20,  which  he  deems  not  only  to  stand  in  a  natural 
relation  to  vv.  4-8,  but  to  be  indispensable  to  them. 
That  the  passage  quotes  from  other  prophets,  he  holds 
to  be  no  proof  against  its  authenticity.  If  we  break  off 
with  ver.  8,  he  thinks  that  we  must  impute  to  Habakkuk 
the  opinion  that  the  wrongs  of  the  world  are  chiefly 
avenged  by  human  means — a  conclusion  which  is  not 
to  be  expected  after  chap.  i. — ii.  i  ff. 

3.  Chap.   III. 

The  third  chapter,  an  Ode  or  Rhapsody,  is  ascribed  to 
Habakkuk  by  its  title.  This,  however,  does  not  prove 
its  authenticity :  the  title  is  too  like  those  assigned  to 
the  Psalms  in  the  period  of  the  Second  Temple.^  On 
the  contrary,  the  title  itself,  the  occurrence  of  the 
musical  sign  Selah  in  the  contents,  and  the  colophon 
suggest  for  the  chapter  a  liturgical  origin  after  the 
Exile.*     That  this  is  more  probable  than  the  alternative 


it  is  condemned  by  Stade,  Kuenen  and  Budde.  Davidson  finds  this 
not  a  serious  difficulty,  for,  he  points  out,  Habakkuk  anticipates 
several  later  lines  of  thought. 

1  See  above,  p.  39,  n. 

^  A.  T.  Religionsgeschichte,  p.  229,  n.  2, 

'  Cf.  the  ascription  by  the  LXX.  of  Psalms  cxlvi. — cl.  to  the  prophets 
Haggai  and  Zechariah. 

*  Cf.  Kuenen,  who  conceives  it  to  have  been  taken  from  a  post-exilic 
collection  of  Psalms.  See  also  Cheyne,  The  Origin  of  the  Psalter: 
"  exilic  or  more  probably  post-exilic "  (p.  125).     "The  most  natural 


THE  BOOK   OF  HABAKKUK  127 

opinion,  that,  being  a  genuine  work  of  Habakkuk,  the 
chapter  was  afterwards  arranged  as  a  Psalm  for  public 
worship,  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  no  other  work  of 
the  prophets  has  been  treated  in  the  same  way.  Nor 
do  the  contents  support  the  authorship  by  Habakkuk. 
They  reflect  no  definite  historical  situation  like  the  pre- 
ceding chapters.  The  style  and  temper  are  different. 
While  in  them  the  prophet  speaks  for  himself,  here  it 
is  the  nation  or  congregation  of  Israel  that  addresses 
God.  The  language  is  not,  as  some  have  maintained, 
late ;  ^  but  the  designation  of  the  people  as  Thine  anointed^ 
a  term  which  before  the  Exile  was  applied  to  the  king, 
undoubtedly  points  to  a  post-exiHc  date.  The  figures, 
the  theophany  itself,  are  not  necessarily  archaic,  but 
are  more  probably  moulded  on  archaic  models.  There 
are  many  affinities  with  Psalms  of  a  late  date. 

At  the  same  time  a  number  of  critics  ^  maintain  the 
genuineness  of  the  chapter,  and  they  have  some  grounds 
for  this.  Habakkuk  was,  as  we  can  see  from  chaps,  i. 
and  ii.,  a  real  poet.  There  was  no  need  why  a  man  of 
his  temper  should  be  bound  down  to  reflecting  only 

position  for  it  is  in  the  Persian  period.  It  was  doubtless  appended 
to  Habakkuk,  for  the  same  reason  for  which  Isa.  Ixiii.  7 — Ixiv.  was 
attached  to  the  great  prophecy  of  Restoration,  viz.  that  the  earlier 
national  troubles  seemed  to  the  Jewish  Church  to  be  typical  of  its  own 
sore  troubles  after  the  Return.  .  .  .  The  lovely  closing  verses  of  Hab.  iii. 
are  also  in  a  tone  congenial  to  the  later  religion  "  (p.  156).  Much  less 
certain  is  the  assertion  that  the  language  is  imitative  and  artificial 
{ibid.')  ;  while  the  statement  that  in  ver.  3 — cf.  with  Deut.  xxxiii.  2 — 
we  have  an  instance  of  the  effort  to  avoid  the  personal  name  of  the 
Deity  (p.  287)  is  disproved  by  the  use  of  the  latter  in  ver.  2  and 
other  verses. 

^  nX  W*<,  ver.  13,  cannot  be  taken  as  a  proof  of  lateness ;  read 
probably  HK  r^K^IH. 

*  Pusey,  Ewald,  KiJnig,  Sinker  {The  Psalm  of  Habakkuk^  Cambridge, 
1890),  Kirkpatrick  (Smith's  Bible  Diet,  art.  "Habakkuk  "),  Von  Orelli 


128  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

his  own  day.  If  so  practical  a  prophet  as  Hosea, 
and  one  who  has  so  closely  identified  himself  with  his 
times,  was  wont  to  escape  from  them  to  a  retrospect  of 
the  dealings  of  God  with  Israel  from  of  old,  why  should 
not  the  same  be  natural  for  a  prophet  who  was  much 
less  practical  and  more  literary  and  artistic  ?  There 
are  also  many  phrases  in  the  Psalm  which  may  be  inter- 
preted as  reflecting  the  same  situation  as  chaps,  i.,  ii. 
All  this,  however,  only  proves  possibility. 

The  Psalm  has  been  adapted  in  Psalm  Ixxvii.  17-20. 


Further  Note  on  Chap.  I.— II.  4. 

Since  this  chapter  was  in  print  Nowack's  Die  Kleinm  Propheten 
in  the  "  Handkommentar  z.  A.  T."  has  been  published.  He  recog- 
nises emphatically  that  the  disputed  passage  about  the  Chaldeans, 
chap.  i.  5-1 1 J  is  out  of  place  where  it  lies  (this  against  Kuenen  and 
the  other  authorities  cited  above,  p.  117),  and  admits  that  it  follows 
on,  with  a  natural  connection,  to  chap.  ii.  4,  to  which  Budde  pro- 
poses to  attach  it.  Nevertheless,  for  other  reasons,  which  he  does 
not  state,  he  regards  Budde's  proposal  as  untenable  ;  and  reckons  the 
disputed  passage  to  be  by  another  hand  than  Habakkuk's,  and  in- 
truded into  the  latter's  argument.  Habakkuk's  argument  he  assigns 
to  after  605  ;  perhaps  590.  The  tyrant  complained  against  would 
therefore  be  the  Chaldean. — Driver  in  the  6th  ed.  of  his  Introduction 
(1897)  deems  Budde's  argument  "too  ingenious,"  and  holds  by  the 
older  and  most  numerously  supported  argument  (above,  pp.  ii6ff,). — 
On  a  review  of  the  case  in  the  light  of  these  two  discussions,  the 
present  Writer  holds  to  his  opinion  that  Budde's  rearrangement,  which 
he  has  adopted,  offers  the  fewest  difficulties. 


CHAPTER    X 

THE  PROPHET  AS   SCEPTIC 

Habakkuk  i. — ii.  4 

OF  the  prophet  Habakkuk  we  know  nothing  that  t 
is  personal  save  his  name— to  our  ears  his  some- 
what odd  name.  It  is  the  intensive  form  of  a  root  which 
means  to  caress  or  embrace.  More  probably  it  was 
given  to  him  as  a  child,  than  afterwards  assumed  as  a 
symbol  of  his  clinging  to  God.^ 

Tradition  says  that  Habakkuk  was  a  priest,  the  son 
of  Joshua,  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  but  this  is  only  an 
inference  from  the  late  liturgical  notes  to  the  Psalm 
which  has  been  appended  to  his  prophecy.^  All  that 
we  know  for  certain  is  that  he  was  a  contemporary  \ 

'  p-lpnn  (the  Greek  "Afi^aKovfx,  LXX.  version  of  the  title  of  this 
book,  and  again  the  inscription  to  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  suggests 
the  pointing  p-"lp3n  ;  Epiph.,  De  Vitis  Proph.—see  next  note— spells  it 
'A/3j8aK0U)tt),  from  p2n,  to  embrace.  Jerome  :  "  He  is  called  '  embrace ' 
either  because  of  his  love  to  the  Lord,  or  because  he  wrestles  with 
God."  Luther:  "Habakkuk  means  one  who  comforts  and  holds  up 
his  people  as  one  embraces  a  weeping  person." 

2  See  above,  pp.  126  ff.  The  title  to  the  Greek  version  of  Bel  and  the 
Dragon  bears  that  the  latter  was  taken  from  the  prophecy  of  Ham- 
bakoum,  son  of  Jesus,  of  the  tribe  of  Levi.  Further  details  are  offered 
in  the  De  Vitis  Prophetarum  of  (Pseud-)  Epiphanius,  Epiph.  Opera, 
ed.  Paris,  1622,  Vol.  II.,  p.  147,  according  to  which  Habakkuk  be- 
longed to  Be^fox77p,  which  is  probably  Be^^axaptaj  of  i  Mace.  vi.  32, 
the  modern  Beit-Zakaryeh,  a  little  to  the  north  of  Hebron,  and  placed 
by  this  notice,  as  Nahum's  Elkosh  is  placed,  in  the  tribe  of  Simeon. 
His  grave  was  shown  in  the  neighbouring  Keilah.  The  notice  further 
VOL.  II.  129  9 


130  THE   TWELVE   PROPHETS 

of  Jeremiah,  with  a  sensitiveness  under  wrong  and 
impulses  to  question  God  which  remind  us  of  Jeremiah  ; 
but  with  a  literary  power  which  is  quite  his  own.  We 
may  emphasise  the  latter,  even  though  we  recognise 
upon  his  writing  the  influence  of  Isaiah's. 

Habakkuk's  originality,  however,  is  deeper  than 
style.  He  is  the  earliest  who  is  known  to  us  of  a  new 
school  of  religion  in  Israel.  He  is  called  prophet^ 
but  at  first  he  does  not  adopt  the  attitude  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  prophets.  His  face  is  set  in 
an  opposite  direction  to  theirs.  They  address  the 
nation  Israel,  on  behalf  of  God :  he  rather  speaks 
i  to  God  on  behalf  of  Israel.  Their  task  was  Israel's 
sin,  the  proclamation  of  God's  doom  and  the  offer 
of  His  grace  to  their  penitence.  Habakkuk's  task 
is  God  Himself,  the  effort  to  find  out  what  He 
means  by  permitting  tyranny  and  wrong.  They 
attack  the  sins,  he  is  the  first  to  state  the  problems, 
of  life.  To  him  the  prophetic  revelation,  the  Torah,  is 
complete :  it  has  been  codified  in  Deuteronomy  and 
enforced  by  Josiah.  Habakkuk's  business  is  not  to 
add  to  it  but  to  ask  why  it  does  not  work.  Why 
does  God  suffer  wrong  to  triumph,  so  that  the  Torah  is 
paralysed,  and  Mishpat,  the  prophetic  justice  or  judg- 
ment, comes  to  nought?  The  prophets  travailed  for 
Israel's  character — to  get  the  people  to  love  justice  till 
justice  prevailed  among  them :  Habakkuk  feels  justice 
cannot  prevail  in  Israel,  because  of  the  great  disorder 


alleges  that  when  Nebuchadrezzar  came  up  to  Jerusalem  Habakkuk 
fled  to  Ostracine,  where  he  travelled  in  the  country  of  the  Ishmaelites  ; 
but  he  returned  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  and  died  in  538,  two  years 
before  the  return  of  the  exiles.  Bel  and  the  Dragon  tells  an  extra- 
ordinary story  of  his  miraculous  carriage  of  food  to  Daniel  in  the  lions' 
den  soon  after  Cyrus  had  taken  Babylon. 


Hab.i.-ii.4]  THE  PROPHET  AS  SCEPTIC  131 

which  God  permits  to  fill  the  world.  It  is  true  that 
he  arrives  at  a  prophetic  attitude,  and  before  the  end 
authoritatively  declares  God's  will;  but  he  begins  by 
searching  for  the  latter,  with  an  appreciation  of  the 
great  obscurity  cast  over  it  by  the  facts  of  life.  He 
complains  to  God,  asks  questions  and  expostulates. 
This  is  the  beginning  of  speculation  in  Israel.  It 
does  not  go  far  :  it  is  satisfied  with  stating  questions 
to  God  ;  it  does  not,  directly  at  least,  state  questions 
against  Him.  But  Habakkuk  at  least  feels  that  revela- 
tion is  baffied  by  experience,  that  the  facts  of  life 
bewilder  a  man  who  believes  in  the  God  whom  the 
prophets  have  declared  to  Israel.  As  in  Zephaniah 
prophecy  begins  to  exhibit  traces  of  apocalypse,  so  in 
Habakkuk  we  find  it  developing  the  first  impulses  of 
speculation. 

We  have  seen  that  the  course  of  events  which 
troubles  Habakkuk  and  renders  the  Torah  ineffectual 
is  somewhat  obscure.  On  one  interpretation  of  these 
two  chapters,  that  which  takes  the  present  order  of 
their  verses  as  the  original,  Habakkuk  asks  why  God 
is  silent  in  face  of  the  injustice  which  fills  the  whole 
horizon  (chap.  i.  1-4),  is  told  to  look  round  among  the 
heathen  and  see  how  God  is  raising  up  the  Chaldeans 
(i.  5-1 1),  presumably  to  punish  this  injustice  (if  it  be 
Israel's  own)  or  to  overthrow  it  (if  vv.  1-4  mean 
that  it  is  inflicted  on  Israel  by  a  foreign  power).  But 
the  Chaldeans  only  aggravate  the  prophet's  problem ; 
they  themselves  are  a  wicked  and  oppressive  people  : 
how  can  God  suffer  them?  (i.  12-17).  Then  come  the 
prophet's  waiting  for  an  answer  (ii.  i)  and  the  answer 
itself  (ii.  2  ff.).  Another  interpretation  takes  the 
passage  about  the  Chaldeans  (i.  5-1 1)  to  be  out  of 
place  where  it  now  lies,  removes  it  to  after  chap.  ii.  4 


132  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

as  a  part  of  God's  answer  to  the  prophet's  problem, 
and  leaves  the  remainder  of  chap.  i.  as  the  description 
of  the  Assyrian  oppression  of  Israel,  baffling  the  Torah 
and  perplexing  the  prophet's  faith  in  a  Holy  and  Just 
God.^  Of  these  two  views  the  former  is,  we  have 
seen,  somewhat  artificial,  and  though  the  latter  is  by 
no  means  proved,  the  arguments  for  it  are  sufficient 
to  justify  us  in  re-arranging  the  verses  chap.  i. — ii.  4  in 
accordance  with  its  proposals. 

The  Oracle  which  Habakkuk  the  Prophet 
Received  by  Vision} 

How  long,  O  Jehovah^  have  I  called  and  Thou  hear  est 

not  ? 
I  cry  to  Thee,  Wrong  !  and  Thou  sendest  no  help. 
Why  make  me  look  upon  sorrow, 
And  fill  mine  eyes  with  trouble  ? 
Violence  and  wrong  are  before  me, 
Strife  comes  and  quarrel  arises.^ 
So  the  Law  is  benumbed,  and  judgment  never  gets 

forth :  * 
For  the  wicked  beleaguers  the  righteous, 
So  judgment  comes  forth  perverted. 

***** 

Art  not   Thou  oj  old,  Jehovah,  my  God,  my  Holy 
One?  .  .  .« 

'  See  above,  pp.  119  ff.  -  Heb.  saw, 

3  Text  uncertain.     Perhaps  we  should  read,  Why  make   me   look 
upon  sorrow  and  trouble  ?  why  fill  mine  eyes  with  violence  and  wrong 
Strife  is  come  before  me,  and  quarrel  arises. 

*  Never  gets  away,  to  use  a  colloquial  expression. 

^  Here  vv.  5-11  come  in  the  original. 

^  Ver.  126:  We  shall  not  die  (many  Jewish  authorities  read  Thou 
shall  not  die).  O  Jehovah,  for  judgment  hast  Thou  set  him,  and,  O  my 
Rock,  for  pimishment  hast  Thou  appointed  him. 


Hab.i.-ii.4]  THE  PROPHET  AS  SCEPTIC  133 

Purer  of  eyes  than  to  behold  evil, 

And  that  canst  not  gaze  upon  trouble  / 

Why  gazest  Thou  upon  traitors,^ 

Art  dumb  when  the  wicked  swallows  him   that  ts 

more  righteous  than  he  ?  ^ 
Thou  hast  let  men  be  made  ^  like  fish  of  the  sea. 
Like  worms  that  have  no  ruler  !  * 
He  lifts  the  whole  of  it  with  his  angle; 
Draws  it  in  with  his  net,  sweeps  it  in  his  drag-net : 
So  rejoices  and  exults. 
So  he  sacrifices  to  his  net,  and  offers  incense  to  his 

drag-net; 
For  by  them  is  his  portion  fat,  and  his  food  rich. 
Shall  he  for  ever  draw  his  sword,  ^ 
And  ceaselessly,  ruthlessly  massacre  nations  ?  ° 

Upon  my  watch-tower  I  will  stand, 
And  take  my  post  on  the  rampart  J 
I  will  watch  to  see  what  He  will  say  to  me, 
And  what  answer  P  get  back  to  my  plea. 

And  Jehovah  answered  me  and  said: 

Write  the  vision,  and  make  it  plain  upon  tablets, 

That  he  may  run  who  reads  it. 

'  Wellhausen  :  on  the  robbery  of  robbers. 
^  LXX.  devoureth  the  righteous. 
^  Literally  Thou  hast  made  men. 

*  Wellhausen  :  cf.  Jer.  xviii.  i,  xix.  I. 

•^  So  Giesebrecht  (see  above,  p,  119,  n.  2),  reading  13"in  pH^  D^WH 
for  1D"in    p'''T'    p'^rrii  shall  he  therefore  empty  his  net  ? 

"  Wellhausen,  reading  ^lin'' for  iin?  :  shoidd  he  therefore  be  emptying 
his  net  continually,  and  slaughtering  the  nations  without  pity  ? 

'  "IIVD.  But  Wellhausen  takes  it  as  from  "IVJ  and  =  ward  or 
watch-tower.     So  Nowack. 

*  So  Heb.  and  LXX.  ;  but  Syr.  he  :  so  Wellhausen,  what  answer 
He  returns  to  my  plea. 


134  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


For^  the  vision  is  for  a  time  yet  to  be  fixed, 
Yet  it  hurries  ^  to  the  end,  and  shall  not  fail: 
Though  it  linger,  wait  thou  for  it; 
Coming  it  shall  come,  and  shall  not  be  behind? 
Lo  !  swollen,^  not  level  is  his  ^  soul  within  him  ; 
But  the  righteous  shall  live  by  his  faithfulness.^ 
***** 

Look  ^  round  among  the  heathen,  and  look  well, 

Shudder  and  be  shocked;  ^ 

For  I  am  ^  about  to  do  a  work  in  your  days, 

Ye  shall  not  believe  it  when  told. 

For,  lo,  I  am  about  to  raise  up  the  Kasdim^^ 

A  people  the  most  bitter  and  the  most  hasty. 

That  traverse  the  breadths  of  the  earth. 

To  possess  dwelling-places  not  their  own. 

Awful  and  terrible  are  they ; 

From  themselves  ^^  start  their  purpose  and  rising. 


'  Bredenkamp  {Stud.  n.  Krit,  1889,  pp.  161  ff.)  suggests  that  the 
writing  on  the  tablets  begins  here  and  goes  on  to  ver.  5a.  Budde 
(Z.A.T.W.,  1889,  PP«  155  f-)  takes  the  ""^  which  opens  it  as  simply 
equivalent  to  the  Greek  8ti,  introducing,  Hke  our  marks  of  quotation, 
the  writing  itself. 

-  na^)  :  cf.  Psalm  xxvii.  12.     Bredenkamp  emends  to  rrnQ^I. 

'  Not  be  late,  or  past  its  fixed  time. 

*  So  literally  the].Heb.  nSsy,  i.e.  arrogant,  false  :  cf.  the  colloquial 
expression  swollen-head  =  conceit,  as  opposed  to  level-headed. 
Bredenkamp,  5^;/f/.  ?/.  p'/V.,  1889,  121,  reads  f]^!?;.!!  for  rh^V  Hlin. 
Wellhausen  suggests  7)VT\  T\17\^  Lo,  the  sinner',' in  contrast  to  pHV 
of  next  clause.     Nowack  prefers  this. 

^  LXX.  wrongly  my. 

^  LXX.  iriffTis,  faith,  and  so  in  N.  T. 

'  Chap.  i.  5-1 1. 

^  So  to  bring  out  the  assonance,  reading  -inon-l  •inonJOnn 

9  So  LXX.  '  '  =  =  -=•• 

*"  Or  Chaldeans ;  on  the  name  and  people  see  above,  p.  19. 

"  Heb.  singular. 


Hab.i.-ii.4]  THE  PROPHET  AS  SCEPTIC  135 

Fleeter  than  leopards  their  steeds^ 
Swifter  than  night-wolves. 
Their  horsemen  leap  ^  from  afar; 
They  swoop  like  the  eagle  a-haste  to  devour. 
All  for  wrong  do  they'^  come  ; 
The  set  of  their  faces  is  forward y^ 
And  they  sweep  up  captives  like  sand. 
They — at  kings  do  they  scoffs 
And  princes  are  sport  to  them. 
They — they  laugh  at  each  fortress ^ 
Heap  dust  up  and  take  it  ! 
Then  the  wind  shifts,'^  and  they  pass  I 
But  doomed  are  those  whose  own  strength  is  their 
godl^ 

The  difficulty  of  deciding  between  the  various  arrange- 
ments of  the  two  chapters  of  Habakkuk  does  not, 
fortunately,  prevent  us  from  appreciating  his  argument. 
What  he  feels  throughout  (this  is  obvious,  however 
you   arrange   his   verses)   is   the   tyranny  of  a   great 


'  Omit  VSJ'^DI  (evidently  a  dittography)  and  the  lame  1X1''  which 
is  omitted  by  LXX.  and  was  probably  inserted  to  afford  a  verb  for  the 
second  VJ^IQ. 

^  Heb.  sing.,  and  so  in  all  the  clauses  here  except  the  next. 

^  A  problematical  rendering.  nD!lD  is  found  only  here,  and  probably 
means  direction.  Hitzig  translates  desire^  effort,  striving.  riDHp,  to- 
wards the  front  or  forward ;  but  elsewhere  it  means  only  eastward : 
DHp,  the  east  wind.  Cf.  Judg.  v.  21,  \\^^p  Snj  D^DHp  i>nj,  a  river  of 
spates  or  rushes  is  the  river  Kishon  (^Hist.  Geog.,  p.  395).  Perhaps 
we  should  change  DNT'JQ  to  a  singular  suffix,  as  in  the  clauses  before 
and  after,  and  this  would  leave  D  to  form  with  HOHp  a  participle 
from  Dnpn  (cf.  Amos  ix.  10). 

*  Or  their  spirit  changes,  or  they  change  like  the  wind  (Wellhausen 
suggests  nilD).     Gratz  reads  n3  and  f]vD!,  ^^  renews  his  strength. 

^  Von  Orelli.     For  DK^X  Wellhausen  proposes  D^^V  and  sets. 


136  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

heathen  power/  be  it  Assyrian,  Egyptian  or  Chaldean. 
I'he  prophet's  horizon  is  filled  with  wrong :  ^  Israel 
thrown  into  disorder,  revelation  paralysed,  justice  per- 
verted.^ But,  like  Nahum,  Habakkuk  feels  not  for 
Israel  alone.  The  Tyrant  has  outraged  humanity.*  He 
sweeps  peoples  into  his  net^  and  as  soon  as  he  empties 
this,  he  fills  it  again  ceaselessly^  as  if  there  were  no  just 
God  above.  He  exults  in  his  vast  cruelty,  and  has 
success  so  unbroken  that  he  worships  the  very  means 
of  it.  In  itself  such  impiety  is  gross  enough,  but  to 
a  heart  that  believes  in  God  it  is  a  problem  of  exquisite 
pain.  Habakkuk's  is  the  burden  of  the  finest  faith. 
He  illustrates  the  great  commonplace  of  religious 
doubt,  that  problems  arise  and  become  rigorous  in 
proportion  to  the  purity  and  tenderness  of  a  man's 
conception  of  God.  It  is  not  the  coarsest  but  the  finest 
\  temperaments  which  are  exposed  to  scepticism.  Every 
advance  in  assurance  of  God  or  in  appreciation  of 
His  character  develops  new  perplexities  in  face  of  the 
facts  of  experience,  and  faith  becomes  her  own  most 
cruel  troubler.  Habakkuk's  questions  are  not  due  to 
any  cooling  of  the  religious  temper  in  Israel,  but 
are  begotten  of  the  very  heat  and  ardour  of  prophecy 
in  its  encounter  with  experience.  His  tremulousness, 
for  instance,  is  impossible  without  the  high  knowledge 
of  God's  purity  and  faithfulness,  which  older  prophets 
had  achieved  in  Israel  : — 

Art  not  Thou  of  old^  O  LORD,  my  God,  my  Holy 
One, 


1  The  wicked  of  chap.  i.  4  must,  as  we  have  seen,  be  the  same  as 
the  wicked  of  cha-p.  i.  13 — a  heathen  oppressor  of  the  righteous,  i.e.  the 
people  of  God. 

M.3.  M.4.  M.  13-17. 


Hab.i.-ii.4]  THE  PROPHET  AS  SCEPTIC  137 

Purer  of  eyes  than  to  behold  evily 
And  incapable  of  looking  upon  wrong? 

His  despair  is  that  which  comes  only  from  eager  and 
persevering  habits  of  prayer  : — 

How  long  J  O  LORD,  have  I  called  and  Thou  hearest 

not! 
I  cry  to  Thee  of  wrong  and  Thou  givest  no  help  ! 

His  questions,  too,  are  bold  with  that  sense  of  God's 
absolute  power,  which,  flashed  so  bright  in  Israel  as  to 
blind  men's  eyes  to  all  secondary  and  intermediate 
causes.     Thou,  he  says, — 

Thou  hast  made  men  like  fishes  of  the  sea, 
Tike  worms  that  have  no  ruler, 

boldly  charging  the  Almighty,  in  almost  the  temper  of 
Job  himself,  with  being  the  cause  of  the  cruelty  inflicted 
by  the  unchecked  tyrant  upon  the  nations;  for  shall 
evil  happen,  and  Jehovah  not  have  done  it  ?  ^  Thus  all 
through  we  perceive  that  Habakkuk's  trouble  springs 
from  the  central  founts  of  prophecy.  This  scepticism — 
if  we  may  venture  to  give  the  name  to  the  first  motions 
in  Israel's  mind  of  that  temper  which  undoubtedly 
became  scepticism — this  scepticism  was  the  inevitable 
heritage  of  prophecy :  the  stress  and  pain  to  which 
prophecy  was  forced  by  its  own  strong  convictions  in 
face  of  the  facts  of  experience.  Habakkuk,  the  prophet, 
as  he  is  called,  stood  in  the  direct  line  of  his  order, 
but  just  because  of  that  he  was  the  father  also  of 
Israel's  religious  doubt. 

But  a  discontent  springing   from   sources   so   pure 

'  Amos  iii.  6.    See  Vol.  I,,  p.  90. 


138  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

was  surely  the  preparation  of  its  own  healing.  In 
a  verse  of  exquisite  beauty  the  prophet  describes  the 
temper  in  which  he  trusted  for  an  answer  to  all  his 
doubts  : — 

On  my  watch-tower  will  I  stand, 
And  take  up  my  post  on  the  rampart; 
I  will  watch  to  see  what  He  says  to  me. 
And  what  answer  I  get  back  to  my  plea. 

This  verse  is  not  to  be  passed  over,  as  if  its  meta- 
phors were  merely  of  literary  effect.  They  express 
rather  the  moral  temper  in  which  the  prophet  carries 
his  doubt,  or,  to  use  New  Testament  language,  the  good 
conscience,  which  some  having  put  away,  concerning  faith 
Imve  made  shipwreck.  Nor  is  this  temper  patience  only 
and  a  certain  elevation  of  mind,  nor  only  a  fixed 
attention  and  sincere  willingness  to  be  answered. 
Through  the  chosen  words  there  breathes  a  noble 
sense  of  responsibility.  The  prophet  feels  he  has  a 
post  to  hold,  a  rampart  to  guard.  He  knows  the 
heritage  of  truth,  won  by  the  great  minds  of  the  past ; 
and  in  a  world  seething  with  disorder,  he  will  take  his 
stand  upon  that  and  see  what  more  his  God  will  send 
him.  At  the  very  least,  he  will  not  indolently  drift, 
but  feel  that  he  has  a  standpoint,  however  narrow,  and 
bravely  hold  it.  Such  has  ever  been  the  attitude  of 
the  greatest  sceptics — not  only,  let  us  repeat,  earnest- 
ness and  sincerity,  but  the  recognition  of  duty  towards 
the  truth  :  the  conviction  that  even  the  most  tossed  and 
troubled  minds  have  somewhere  a  irov  crrcS  appointed  of 
God,  and  upon  it  interests  human  and  divine  to  defend. 
Without  such  a  conscience,  scepticism,  however  in- 
tellectually gifted,  will  avail  nothing.  Men  who  drift 
never   discover,   never   grasp   aught.     They   are   only 


Hab.i.-ii.4]  THE  PROPHET  AS  SCEPTIC  139 

dazzled  by  shifting  gleams  of  the  truth,  only   fretted 
and  broken  by  experience. 

Taking  then  his  stand  within  the  patient  temper,  but 
especially  upon  the  conscience  of  his  great  order,  the 
prophet  waits  for  his  answer  and  the  healing  of  his 
trouble.  The  answer  comes  to  him  in  the  promise  of 
a  Vision^  which,  though  it  seem  to  linger,  will  not  be 
later  than  the  time  fixed  by  God.  A  Vision  is  something 
realised,  experienced — something  that  will  be  as  actual 
and  present  to  the  waiting  prophet  as  the  cruelty  which 
now  fills  his  sight.  Obviously  some  series  of  historical 
events  is  meant,  by  which,  in  the  course  of  time,  the 
unjust  oppressor  of  the  nations  shall  be  overthrown 
and  the  righteous  vindicated.  Upon  the  re-arrangement 
of  the  t€xt  proposed  by  Budde,^  this  series  of  events 
is  the  rise  of  the  Chaldeans,  and  it  is  an  argument 
in  favour  of  his  proposal  that  the  promise  of  a  Vision 
requires  some  such  historical  picture  to  follow  it  as  we 
find  in  the  description  of  the  Chaldeans— chap.  i.  5-1 1. 
This,  too,  is  exphcitly  introduced  by  terms  of  vision  : 
See  among  the  nations  and  look  round.  .  .  .  Yea,  behold 
I  am  about  to  raise  up  the  Kasdim.  But  before  this 
Vision  is  given,^  and  for  the  uncertain  interval  of 
waiting  ere  the  facts  come  to  pass,  the  Lord  enforces 
upon  His  watching  servant  the  great  moral  principle 
that  arrogance  and  tyranny  cannot,  from  the  nature 
of  them,  last,  and  that  if  the  righteous  be  only  patient 
he  will  survive  them  : — 

Zo,  swollen,  not  level,  is  his  soul  within  him  ; 
But  the  righteous  shall  live  by  his  faithfulness. 


^  See  above,  pp.  II9  ff. 

^  Its  proper  place  in  Budde's  re-arrangement  is  after  chap.  ii.  4. 


140  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

We  have  already  seen  ^  that  the  text  of  the  first  line 
of  this  couplet  is  uncertain.  Yet  the  meaning  is 
obvious,  partly  in  the  words  themselves,  and  partly 
by  their  implied  contrast  with  the  second  line.  The 
soul  of  the  wicked  is  a  radically  morbid  thing  :  inflated, 
swollen  (unless  we  should  read  perverted,  which  more 
plainly  means  the  same  thing  ^),  not  level,  not  natural 
and  normal.  In  the  nature  of  things  it  cannot  endure. 
But  the  righteous  shall  live  by  his  faithfulness.  This 
word,   wrongly   translated   faith    by    the    Greek   and 

)  other  versions,  is  concentrated  by  Paul  in  his  repeated 
quotation  from  the  Greek  ^  upon  that  single  act  of 
faith  by  which  the  sinner  secures  forgiveness  and 
justification.  With  Habakkuk  it  is  a  wider  term. 
I  ^Emunahy^  from  a  verb  meaning  originally  to  be  firm, 
is  used  in  the  Old  Testament  in  the  physical  sense  of 

\  steadfastness.  So  it  is  applied  to  the  arms  of  Moses 
held  up  by  Aaron  and  Hur  over  the  battle  with  Amalek  : 
they  were  steadiness  till  the  going  down  of  the  sun.''  It 
is  also  used  of  the  faithful  discharge  of  public  office,'^ 
and  of  fidelity  as  between  man  and  wife.'^  It  is 
also  faithful  testimony,^  equity  in  judgment,^  truth  in 
speech,^^  and  sincerity  or  honest  dealing."  Of  course 
it  has  faith  in  God  as  its  secret — the  verb  from  which 
it  is  derived  is  the  regular  Hebrew  term  to  believe — 
but  it  is  rather  the  temper  which  faith  produces  of 
endurance,  steadfastness,  integrity.  Let  the  righteous, 
however  baffled  his  faith  be  by  experience,  hold  on  in 


'  Above,  p.  134,  n.  4.  ^  Hosea  ii.  22  (Heb.). 

2  npipr  instead  of  HPSi;.  ^  pj-Qv.  xiv.  5. 

3  Rom.  i.  17  ;  Gal.  iii.  ii".  »  Isa.  xi.  5. 

*  n>1D^.  '0  Prov.  xii.  17  :  cf.  Jer.  ix.  2. 

^  Exod.  xvii.  12.  '1  Prov.  xii.  22,  xxviii.  30. 
2  Chron.  xix.  9. 


Hab.i.-ii.4]  THE  PROPHET  AS  SCEPTIC  141 

loyalty  to  God  and  duty,  and  he  shall  live.  Though 
St.  Paul,  as  we  have  said,  used  the  Greek  rendering 
of  faith  for  the  enforcement  of  trust  in  God's  mercy 
through  Jesus  Christ  as  the  secret  of  forgiveness  and 
life,  it  is  rather  to  Habakkuk's  wider  intention  of 
patience  and  fidelity  that  the  author  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  returns  in  his  fuller  quotation  of  the 
verse  :  For  yet  a  little  while  and  He  that  shall  come 
will  come  and  will  not  tarry;  now  the  just  shall  live  by 
faithj  but  if  he  draw  back  My  soul  shall  have  no  pleasure 
in  him} 

Such  then  is  the  tenor  of  the  passage.  In  face  of 
experience  that  baffles  faith,  the  duty  of  Israel  is 
patience  in  loyalty  to  God.  In  this  the  nascent 
scepticism  of  Israel  received  its  first  great  command- 
ment, and  this  it  never  forsook.  Intellectual  questions 
arose,  of  which  Habakkuk's  were  but  the  faintest 
foreboding — questions  concerning  not  only  the  mission 
and  destiny  of  the  nation,  but  the  very  foundation  of 
justice  and  the  character  of  God  Himself.  Yet  did  no 
sceptic,  however  bold  and  however  provoked,  forsake 
his  faithfulness.  Even  Job,  when  most  audaciously 
arraigning  the  God  of  his  experience,  turned  from  Him 
to  God  as  in  his  heart  of  hearts  he  believed  He  must 
be,  experience  notwithstanding.  Even  the  Preacher, 
amid  the  aimless  flux  and  drift  which  he  finds  in  the 
universe,  holds  to  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter 
in  a  command,  which  better  than  any  other  defines  the 
contents  of  the  faithfulness  enforced  by  Habakkuk  : 
Fear  God  and  keep  His  commandments ^  for  this  is  the 
whole  of  man.    It  has  been  the  same  with  the  great  mass 


Heb.  X.  37,  38. 


142  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

of  the  race.  Repeatedly  disappointed  of  their  hopes, 
and  crushed  for  ages  beneath  an  intolerable  tyranny, 
have  they  not  exhibited  the  same  heroic  temper  with 
which  their  first  great  questioner  was  endowed  ?  En- 
durance— this  above  all  others  has  been  the  quality 
of  Israel :  though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  Him. 
And,  therefore,  as  Paul's  adaptation,  The  just  shall  live 
by  faith^  has  become  the  motto  of  evangelical  Chris- 
tianity, so  we  may  say  that  Habakkuk's  original  of  it 
has  been  the  motto  and  the  fame  of  Judaism :  77?^ 
righteous  shall  live  by  his  faithfulness. 


CHAPTER    XI 

TYRANNY  IS  SUICIDE 

Habakkuk  ii.  5-20 

IN  the  style  of  his  master  Isaiah,  Habakkuk  follows 
up  his  Vision  with  a  series  of  lyrics  on  the  same 
subject :  chap.  ii.  5-20.  They  are  taunt-songs,  the  most 
of  them  beginning  with  Woe  unto^  addressed  to  the 
heathen  oppressor.  Perhaps  they  were  all  at  first  of 
equal  length,  and  it  has  been  suggested  that  the  strik- 
ing refrain  in  which  two  of  them  close — 

For  meWs  bloody  and  earth! s  waste, 
Cities  and  their  inhabitants — 

was  once  attached  to  each  of  the  others  as  well.  But 
the  text  has  been  too  much  altered,  besides  suffering 
several  interpolations/  to  permit  of  its  restoration, 
and  we  can  only  reproduce  these  taunts  as  they  now 
run  in  the  Hebrew  text.  There  are  several  quotations 
(not  necessarily  an  argument  against  Habakkuk's 
authorship) ;  but,  as  a  whole,  the  expression  is  original, 
and  there  are  some  lines  of  especial  force  and  fresh- 
ness. Verses  ^-6a  are  properly  an  introduction,  the 
first  Woe  commencing  with  6b. 

The  belief  which  inspires  these  songs  is  very  simple. 

^  See  above,  pp.  125  f. 
143 


144  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Tyranny  is  intolerable.  In  the  nature  of  things  it 
cannot  endure,  but  works  out  its  own  penalties.  By 
oppressing  so  many  nations,  the  tyrant  is  preparing 
the  instruments  of  his  own  destruction.  As  he  treats 
them,  so  in  time  shall  they  treat  him.  He  is  like  a 
debtor  who  increases  the  number  of  his  creditors. 
Some  day  they  shall  rise  up  and  exact  from  him  the 
last  penny.  So  that  in  cutting  off  others  he  is  but 
forfeiting  his  own  life.  The  very  violence  done  to 
nature,  the  deforesting  of  Lebanon  for  instance,  and 
the  vast  hunting  of  wild  beasts,  shall  recoil  on  him. 
This  line  of  thought  is  exceedingly  interesting.  We 
have  already  seen  in  prophecy,  and  especially  in  Isaiah, 
the  beginnings  of  Hebrew  Wisdom — the  attempt  to 
uncover  the  moral  processes  of  life  and  express  a 
philosophy  of  history.  But  hardly  anywhere  have  we 
found  so  complete  an  absence  of  all  reference  to  the 
direct  interference  of  God  Himself  in  the  punishment 
of  the  tyrant ;  for  the  cup  of  JehovaKs  right  hand  in 
ver.  1 6  is  simply  the  survival  of  an  ancient  metaphor. 
These  proverbs  or  taunt-songs,  in  conformity  with  the 
proverbs  of  the  later  Wisdom,  dwell  only  upon  the 
inherent  tendency  to  decay  of  all  injustice.  Tyranny, 
they  assert,  and  history  ever  since  has  affirmed  their 
truthfulness — tyranny  is  suicide. 

The  last  of  the  taunt-songs,  which  treats  of  the 
different  subject  of  idolatry,  is  probably,  as  we  have 
seen,  not  from  Habakkuk's  hand,  but  of  a  later  date.^ 

'  See  above,  pp.  125  f.  Nowack  (1897)  agrees  that  Cornill's  and 
others'  conclusion  that  vv.  9-20  are  not  Habakkuk's  is  too  sweeping. 
He  takes  the  first,  second  and  fourth  of  the  taunt-songs  as  authentic, 
but  assigns  the  third  (vv.  12-14)  and  the  fifth  (i8-2o)  to  another 
hand.  He  deems  the  refrain,  86  and  176,  to  be  a  gloss,  and  puts  19 
before  18.  Driver,  Introd.y  6th  ed.,  holds  to  the  authenticity  of  all  the 
verses. 


Hab.  ii.  5-20]  TYRANNY  IS  SUICIDE  14S 

Introduction  to  the  Taunt-Songs  (ii.  5-6^). 

For  .  .  .  ^  treacherous^ 

An  arrogant  fellow  J  and  is  not .  .  .  ^ 

Who  opens  his  desire  wide  as  Sheol ; 

He  is  like  death^  unsatisfied ; 

And  hath  swept  to  himself  all  the  nations, 

And  gathered  to  him  all  peoples. 

Shall  not  these,  all  of  them,  take  up  a  proverb  upon 

him. 
And  a  taunt-song  against  him  ?  and  say  : — 

First  Taunt-Song  (ii.  6b-%). 

Woe  unto  him  who  multiplies  what  is  not  his  own^ 

— How  long? — 

And  loads  him  with  debts  !  ^ 

Shall  not  thy  creditors  ^  rise  upy 

And  thy  troublers  awake, 

•  The  text  reads,  For  also  wine  is  treacherous,  under  which  we 
might  be  tempted  to  suspect  some  such  original  as,  As  wine  is 
treacherous,  so  (next  line)  the  proud  fellow,  etc.  (or,  as  Davidson 
suggests,  Like  wine  is  the  treacherous  dealer'),  were  it  not  that  the 
word  wine  appears  neither  in  the  Greek  nor  in  the  Syrian  version. 
Wellhausen  suggests  that  p^H,  wine,  is  a  corruption  of  ^IH,  with 
which  the  verse,  like  vv.  66,  9,  12,  15,  19,  may  have  originally 
begun,  but  according  to  6a  the  taunt-songs,  opening  with  '•in,  start 
first  in  66.      Bredenkamp  proposes  P^!{^  03X1. 

"^  The  text  is  ni3\  a  verb  not  elsewhere  found  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  conjectured  by  our  translators  to  mean  keepeth  at  home,  because 
the  noun  allied  to  it  means  horyiestead  or  resting-place.  The  Syriac 
gives  is  not  satisfied,  and  Wellhausen  proposes  to  read  \\W  with 
that  sense.     See  Davidson's  note  on  the  verse. 

'  A.V.  thick  clay,  which  is  reached  by  breaking  up  the  word  13^D21^, 
pledge  or  debt,  into  3^,  thick  cloud,  and  t3''D,  clay. 

*  Literally  thy  biters,  ^^SSJ^J,  but  ^K^iJ,  biting,  is  interest  or  usury,  and 
the  Hiphil  of  -,^j  is  to  exact  interest. 

VOL.  II.  10 


146  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

And  thou  be  for  spoil^  to  them  ? 
Because  thou  hast  spoiled  many  nations^ 
All  the  rest  of  the  peoples  shall  spoil  thee. 
For  men's  blood,  and  earth's  waste. 
Cities  and  all  their  inhabitants} 

Second  Taunt-Song  (ii.  9-1 1). 

Woe  unto  him  that  gains  evil  gain  for  his  housed 
To  set  high  his  nest,  to  save  him  from  the  grasp 

of  calamity  ! 
Thou  hast  planned  shame  for  thy  house; 
Thou  hast  cut  off^  many  people, 
While  forfeiting  thine  own  life!" 
For  the  stone  shall  cry  out  from  the  wall, 
And  the  lath  ^  from  the  timber  answer  it. 

Third  Taunt-Song  (ii.   12-14). 

Woe  unto  him  that  builds  a  city  in  bloody 

And  stablishes  a  town  in  iniquity  !^ 

Lo,  is  it  not  from  Jehovah  of  hosts. 

That  the  nations  shall  toil  for  smoke, ^ 

And  the  peoples  wear  themselves  out  for  nought  ? 

But  earth  shall  be  filled  with  the  knowledge  of  the 

glory  of  Jehovah  ^^ 
Like  the  waters  that  cover  the  sea. 

»  LXX.  sing.,  Heb.  pi. 

^  These  words  occur  again  in  ver.  17.  Wellhausen  thinks  they 
suit  neither  here  nor  there.  But  they  suit  all  the  taunt-songs,  and 
some  suppose  that  they  formed  the  refrain  to  each  of  these. 

^  Dynasty  or  people  ?  *  So  LXX.  ;  Heb.  cutting  off. 

^  The  grammatical  construction  is  obscure,  if  the  text  be  correct. 
There  is  no  mistaking  the  meaning. 

^  D''SD,  not  elsewhere  found  in  the  O.T.,  is  in  Rabbinic  Hebrew 
both  cross-beam  and  lath. 

'  Micah  iii.  10.  ^  Literally /r^. 

^  Jer.  xxii.  13.  '"  Jer.  Ii.  58:  which  original? 


Hab.ii.5-20]  TYRANNY  IS  SUICIDE  147 

Fourth  Taunt-Song  (ii.   15-17). 

Woe  unto  him  that  gives  his  neighbour  to  drink^ 

From  the  cup  of  his  wrath  ^  ////  he  be  drunken^ 

That  he  may  gloat  on  his  ^  nakedness  ! 

Thou  art  sated  with  shame — not  with  glory; 

Drink  also  thou^  and  stagger.^ 

Comes  round  to  thee  the  cup  of  Jehovah!  s  right  hand^ 

And  foul  shame  *  on  thy  glory. 

For  the  violence  to  Lebanon  shall  cover  thee, 

The  destruction  of  the  beasts  shall  affray  thee} 
For  men's  blood,  and  earth's  waste. 
Cities  and  all  their  inhabitants,^ 

Fifth  Taunt-Song  (ii.   18-20). 

What  boots  an  image,  when  its  artist  has  graven  it, 
A  cast-image  and  lie-oracle,   that  its  moulder  has 

trusted  upon  it,  "^ 

Making  dumb  idols  ? 
Woe  to  him  that  saith  to  a  block.  Awake  ! 
To  a  dumb  stone.  Arise  I 

*  After  Wellhausen's  suggestion  to  read  "IflDn  P\DD  instead  of 
the  text  "]nOn  nSDD,  adding,  or  mixing,  thy  wrath. 

2  So  LXX.  Q. ;  Heb.  their. 

3  Read  h]3'\r\  (cf.  Nahum  ii.  4 ;  Zech.  xii.  2).  The  text  is  p-im,  not 
found  elsewhere,  which  has  been  conjectured  to  mean  uncover  the 
foreskin.  And  there  is  some  ground  for  this,  as  parallel  to  his  naked- 
ness in  the  previous  clause.  Wellhausen  also  removes  the  first  clause 
to  the  end  of  the  verse :  Drink  also  thou  and  reel ;  there  comes  to  thee 
the  cup  in  Jehovah's  right  hand,  and  thou  wilt  glut  thyself  with  shame 
instead  of  honour. 

*  So  R.V.  for  P7p''p,  which  A.V.  has  taken  as  two  words — ""p,  for 
which  cf.  Jer.  xxv.  27,  where  however  the  text  is  probably  corrupt, 
and  |1?p.     With  this  confusion  cf.  above,  ver.  6,  tO''Diy. 

^  Read  with  LXX.  inn^  for  jH^n^  of  the  text. 
®  See  above,  ver,  8, 


148  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Can  it  teach  ? 

Lo,  it  ,  .  }  with  gold  and  silver ; 

There  is  no  breath  at  all  in  the  heart  of  it. 

But  Jehovah  is  in  His  Holy  Temple: 

Silence  before  Him^  all  the  earth  ! 


CHAPTER    XII 

"/TV  THE  MIDST  OF  THE   YEARS" 
Habakkuk  iii. 

WE  have  seen  the  impossibility  of  deciding  the 
age  of  the  ode  which  is  attributed  to  Habakkuk 
in  the  third  chapter  of  his  book.  But  this  is  only 
one  of  the  many  problems  raised  by  that  brilliant 
poem.  Much  of  its  text  is  corrupt,  and  the  meaning 
of  many  single  words  is  uncertain.  As  in  most 
Hebrew  poems  of  description,  the  tenses  of  the  verbs 
puzzle  us;  we  cannot  always  determine  whether  the 
poet  is  singing  of  that  which  is  past  or  present  or 
future,  and  this  difficulty  is  increased  by  his  subject, 
a  revelation  of  God  in  nature  for  the  deliverance  of 
Israel.  Is  this  the  deliverance  from  Egypt,  with  the 
terrible  tempests  which  accompanied  it  ?  Or  have  the 
features  of  the  Exodus  been  borrowed  to  describe 
some  other  deliverance,  or  to  sum  up  the  constant 
manifestation  of  Jehovah  for  His  people's  help  ? 

The  introduction,  in  ver.  2,  is  clear.  The  singer 
has  heard  what  is  to  be  heard  of  Jehovah,  and  His 
great  deeds  in  the  past.  He  prays  for  a  revival  of 
these  in  the  midst  of  the  years.  The  times  are  full  of 
trouble  and  turmoil.  Would  that  God,  in  the  present 
confusion  of  baffled  hopes  and  broken  issues,  made 

*  Above,  pp.  126  ff 
149 


ISO  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Himself  manifest  by  power  and  brilliance,  as  of  old  I 
In  turmoil  remember  mercy  !  To  render  turmoil  by 
wrathy  as  if  it  were  God's  anger  against  which  the 
singer's  heart  appealed,  is  not  true  to  the  original  word 
itself/  affords  no  parallel  to  the  midst  of  the  years,  and 
misses  the  situation.  Israel  cries  from  a  state  of  Hfe 
in  which  the  obscure  years  are  huddled  together  and 
full  of  turmoil.  We  need  not  wish  to  fix  the  date 
more  precisely  than  the  writer  himself  does,  but  may 
leave  it  with  him  in  the  midst  of  the  years. 

There  follows  the  description  of  the  Great  Theophany, 
of  which,  in  his  own  poor  times,  the  singer  has  heard. 
It  is  probable  that  he  has  in  his  memory  the  events 
of  the  Exodus  and  Sinai.  On  this  point  his  few 
geographical  allusions  agree  with  his  descriptions  of 
nature.  He  draws  all  the  latter  from  the  desert,  or 
Arabian,  side  of  Israel's  history.  He  introduces  none 
of  the  sea-monsters,  or  imputations  of  arrogance  and 
rebellion  to  the  sea  itself,  which  the  influence  of 
Babylonian  mythology  so  thickly  scattered  through 
the  later  sea-poetry  of  the  Hebrews.  The  Theophany 
takes  place  in  a  violent  tempest  of  thunder  and  rain, 
the  only  process  of  nature  upon  which  the  desert 
poets  of  Arabia  dwell  with  any  detail.  In  harmony 
with  this,  God  appears  from  the  southern  desert,  from 
Teman  and  Paran,  as  in  the  theophanies  in  Deutero- 
nomy xxxiii.    and  in  ^the   Song   of  Deborah ;  ^  a  few 


1  T:"1  nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament  means  wrath,  but  either  roar 
and  noise  of  thunder  (Job  xxxvii.  2)  and  of  horsehoofs  (xxxix.  24), 
or  the  raging  of  the  wicked  (iii.  17)  or  the  commotion  of  fear  (iii.  26; 
Isa.  xiv.  3). 

^  Jehovah  from  Sinai  hath  come, 
And  risen  from  Seir  npon  them; 
He  shone  from  Mount  Paraii, 


Hab.iii.]       "/TV  THE  MIDST  OF  THE   YEARS"  151 

lines  recall  the  Song  of  the  Exodus/  and  there  are 
many  resemblances  to  the  phraseology  of  the  Sixty- 
Eighth  Psalm.  The  poet  sees  under  trouble  the  tents 
of  Kushan  and  of  Midian,  tribes  of  Sinai.  And  though 
the  Theophany  is  with  floods  of  rain  and  lightning, 
and  foaming  of  great  waters,  it  is  not  with  hills,  rivers 
or  sea  that  God  is  angry,  but  with  the  nations,  the 
oppressors  of  His  poor  people,  and  in  order  that  He 
may  deliver  the  latter.  All  this,  taken  with  the  fact 
that  no  mention  is  made  of  Egypt,  proves  that,  while 
the  singer  draws  chiefly  upon  the  marvellous  events 
of  the  Exodus  and  Sinai  for  his  description,  he  cele- 
brates not  them  alone  but  all  the  ancient  triumphs 
of  God  over  the  heathen  oppressors  of  Israel.  Com- 
pare  the  obscure  line — these  be  Hts  goings  of  old. 

The  report  of  it  all  fills  the  poet  with  trembHng 
(ver.  16  returns  upon  ver.  26),  and  although  his 
language  is  too  obscure  to  permit  us  to  follow  with 
certainty  the  course  of  his  feeling,  he  appears  to  await 
in  confidence  the  issue  of  Israel's  present  troubles. 
His  argument  seems  to  be,  that  such  a  God  may  be 
trusted  still,  in  face  of  approaching  invasion  (ver.  16). 


And  broke  from  Meribah  of  Kadesh : 
From  the  South  fire  .  .  .  to  them. 

Deut.  xxxiii.  2,  slightly  altered  after  the  LXX.  South :  some  form 
of  pD*"  must  be  read  to  bring  the  line  into  parallel  with  the  others ; 
IDTl,  Teman,  is  from  the  same  root. 

Jehovah,  in  Thy  going  forth  from,  Seir, 
In  Thy  marching  from  Edom's  field, 
Earth  shook,  yea,  heaven  dropped, 
Yea,  the  clouds  dropped  water. 
Mountains  flowed  down  before  Jehovah, 
Yon  Sinai  at  the  face  of  the  God  of  Israel. 

Judges  V.  4,  5. 
'  Exod.  XV. 


152  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

The  next  verse,  however,  does  not  express  the  ex- 
perience of  trouble  from  human  foes ;  but  figuring 
the  extreme  affliction  of  drought,  barrenness  and 
poverty,  the  poet  speaking  in  the  name  of  Israel 
declares  that,  in  spite  of  them,  he  will  still  rejoice  in 
the  God  of  their  salvation  (ver.  17).  So  sudden  is 
this  change  from  human  foes  to  natural  plagues,  that 
some  scholars  have  here  felt  a  passage  to  another 
poem  describing  a  different  situation.  But  the  last 
lines  with  their  confidence  in  the  God  of  salvation,  a 
term  always  used  of  deliverance  from  enemies,  and 
the  boast,  borrowed  from  the  Eighteenth  Psalm,  He 
maketh  my  feet  like  to  hinds^  feetj  and  gives  me  to  march 
on  my  heights,  reflect  the  same  circumstances  as  the 
bulk  of  the  Psalm,  and  offer  no  grounds  to  doubt  the 
unity  of  the  whole/ 

Psalm  ^  of  Habakkuk  the  Prophet. 

LORD,  I  have  heard  the  report  of  Thee; 

I  stand  in  awe  !  ^ 

LORD,  revive  Thy  work  in  the  midst  of  the  years, 

In  the  midst  of  the  years  make  Thee  known;  * 

In  turmoil  ^  remember  mercy  ! 


*  In  this  case  ver.  17  would  be  the  only  one  that  offered  any 
reason  for  suspicion  that  it  was  an  intrusion. 

-  n^Dn,  lit.  Prayer,  but  used  for  Psalm  :  cf.  Psalm  cii.  i. 
^  Sinker  takes  with  this  the  first  two  words  of  next  line  :  /  have 
trembled,  O  LORD,  at  Thy  ivork. 

*  nin,  Imp.  Niph.,  after  LXX.  yvwad-qarj.  The  Hebrew  has 
yniD,  Hi.,  tpiake  known.  The  LXX.  had  a  text  of  these  verses  which 
reduplicated  them,  and  it  has  translated  them  very  badly. 

^  T31,  turmoil,  noise,  as  in  Job  :  a  meaning  that  offers  a  better 
parallel  to  in  the  midst  of  the  years  than  wrath,  which  the  word  also 
means.  Davidson,  however,  thinks  it  more  natural  to  understand  the 
wrath  manifest  at  the  coming  of  Jehovah  to  judgment.     So  Sinker. 


Hab.iii.]       "IN  THE  MIDST  OF  THE    YEARS''  153 

God  comes  from  Teman^ 

The  Holy  from  Mount  Paran} 

He  covers  the  heavens  with  His  glory ^ 

And  filled  with  His  praise  is  the  earth. 

The  flash  is  like  lightning; 

He  has  rays  from  each  hand  of  Him y 

Therein  ^  is  the  ambush  of  His  might. 

Pestilence  travels  before  Him^ 

The  plague-fire  breaks  forth  at  His  feet. 

He  stands  and  earth  shakes,^ 

He  looks  and  drives  nations  asunder; 

And  the  ancient  mountains  are  cloven, 

The  hills  everlasting  sink  down. 

These  be  His  ways  from  of  old. ^ 

Under  trouble  I  see  the  tents  of  Kushan,^ 

'  Vulg.  ab  Austro,  from  the  South. 

^  LXX.  adds  KaraaKiov  Sao-^oj,  which  seems  the  translation  of  a 
clause,  perhaps  a  gloss,  containing  the  name  of  Mount  Se  ir,  as  in  the 
parallel  descriptions  of  a  theophany,  Deut.  xxiii.  2,  Judg.  v.  4.  See 
Sinker,  p.  45. 

^  Wellhausen,  reading  D'5J^  for  DtJ^,  translates  He  made  them,  etc. 

*  So  LXX.     Heb.  and  measures  the  earth. 

^  This  is  the  only  way  of  rendering  the  verse  so  as  not  to  make 
it  seem  superfluous  :  so  rendered  it  sums  up  and  clenches  the 
theophany  from  ver.  3  onwards ;  and  a  new  strophe  now  begins. 
There  is  therefore  no  need  to  omit  the  verse,  as  Wellhausen  does. 

^  LXX.  'Aldioires  ;  but  these  are  Kush,  and  the  parallelism  requires 
a  tribe  in  Arabia.  Calvin  rejects  the  meaning  Ethiopian  on  the  same 
ground,  but  takes  the  reference  as  to  King  Kushan  in  Judg.  iii.  8,  10, 
on  account  of  the  parallelism  with  Midian,  The  Midianite  wife 
whom  Moses  married  is  called  the  Kushite  (Num.  xii.  i).  Hommel 
(Anc.  Hebrew  Tradition  as  illustrated  by  the  Monuments,  p.  315  and  n.  i) 
appears  to  take  Zerah  the  Kushite  of  2  Chron.  xiv.  9  ff,  as  a  prince 
of  Kush  in  Central  Arabia.  But  the  narrative  which  makes  him 
deliver  his  invasion  of  Judah  at  Mareshah  surely  confirms  the  usual 
opinion  that  he  and  his  host  were  Ethiopians  coming  up  from  Egypt. 


154  I^HE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

The  curtains  of  Midlands  land  are  quivering. 

Is  it  with  hills  ^Jehovah  is  wroth  ? 

Is  Thine  anger  with  river's  ? 

Or  against  the  sea  is  Thy  wrath, 

That  Thou  ridest  it  with  horses, 

Thy  chariots  of  victory  ? 

Thy  bow  is  stripped  bare  ;  ^ 

Thou  gluttest  (?)  Thy  shafts.^ 

Into  rivers  Thou  cleavest  the  earth  ;^ 

Mountains  see  Thee  and  writhe; 

The  rainstorm  sweeps  on :  ^ 

The  Deep  utters  his  voice, 

'  For  D''"inJ3n,  is  it  ivith  streams,  read  W'^n2r\,  is  tt  ivith  hills  : 
because  hills  have  already  been  mentioned,  and  rivers  occur  in  the 
next  clause,  and  are  separated  by  the  same  disjunctive  particle,  DN, 
which  separates  the  sea  in  the  third  clause  from  them.  The  whole 
phrase  might  be  rendered,  Is  it  tvith  hills  Thou  art  angry,  O  Jehovah  ? 

^  Questionable  :  the  verb  ll^ri,  Ni.  of  a  supposed  1-1^  does  not 
elsewhere  occur,  and  is  only  conjectured  from  the  noun  T\T\^_,  naked- 
ness, and  nny,  stripping.  LXX.  has  evrelvoiv  ivireivas,  and  Well- 
hausen  reads,  after  2  Sam.  xxiii.  1 8,  "IITO  "Tlli;^  Thou  bringest 
into  action  Thy  bow. 

2  "1D5<  nttSO  nir^ti^j  literally  sivorn  are  staves  or  rods  of  speech. 
A.V.  :  according  _  2?o  the  oaths  of  the  tribes,  even  Thy  word.  LXX. 
(omitting  niUll?^  and  adding  mn^)  iirl  <XKriirTpa,\eyeL  K^pLOi.  These 
words  "  form  a  riddle  which  all  the  ingenuity  of  scholars  has  not 
been  able  to  solve.  Delitzsch  calculates  that  a  hundred  translations 
of  them  have  been  offered "  (Davidson).  In  parallel  to  previous 
clause  about  a  bow,  we  ought  to  expect  HltiD,  staves,  though  it  is  not 
elsewhere  used  for  shafts  or  arrows.  nimK'  may  have  been  JPll^S'^, 
Thou  satest.  The  Cod.  Barb,  reads  :  exopraaas  ^oXLdas  ttjs  ^aperprji 
avToO,  Thou  hast  satiated  the  shafts  of  his  quiver.  Sinker :  sworn 
are  the  punishments  of  the  solemn  decree,  and  relevantly  compares 
Isa.  xi.  4,  the  rod  of  His  mouth  ;  xxx.  32,  rod  of  doom.  Ewald  : 
sevenfold  shafts  of  war.     But  cf.  Psalm  cxviii.  12. 

■*  Uncertain,  but  a  more  natural  result  of  cleaving  than  the  rivers 
Thou  cleavest  into  dry  land  (Davidson  and  Wellhausen). 

^  But  Ewald  takes  this  as  of  the  Red  Sea  floods  sweeping  on  the 
Egyptians. 


Hab.iii.]       "/TV  THE  MIDST  OF  THE   YEARS"  I5S 


He  lifts  up  his  roar  upon  high} 

Sun  and  moon  stand  still  in  their  dwelling, 

At  the  flash  of  Thy  shafts  as  they  speedy 

At  the  sheen  of  the  lightning,  Thy  lance. 

In  wrath  Thou  stridest  the  earthy 

In  anger  Thou  threshest  the  nations  ! 

Thou  art  forth  to  the  help  of  Thy  people^ 

To  save  Thine  anointed? 

Thou  hast  shattered  the  head  from  the  house  of  the 

wicked, 
Laying  hare  from  .  .  .^  to  the  neck. 
Thou  hast  pierced  with  Thy  spears  the  head  of  his 

princes.'^ 
They  stormed  forth  to  crush  me; 
Their  triumph  was  as  to  devour  the  poor  in  secret.^ 
Thou  hast  marched  on  the  sea  with  Thy  horses; 
Foamed^  the  great  waters. 

I  have  heard,  and  my  heart  ^  shakes  ; 

1  ^m  inn^  on  =  he  Ufts  up  his  hands  on  high.  But  the  LXX.  read 
innD,  (pavraalas  avTrjs,  and  took  KK^J  with  the  next  verse.  The 
reading  innD  (for  iH^NItt)  is  indeed  nonsense,  but  suggests  an 
emendation  to   IDITD,  his  shout  or  wail:  cf.  Amos  vi.  7,  Jer.  xvi.  5. 

-  Reading  for  V^^''  V^^i^^T],  required  by  the  ace.  following.  Thine 
anointed,  lit.  Thy  Messiah,  according  to  Isa.  xl.  ff,  the  whole  people. 

^  Heh.  ^'\0'^,  foundation.  LXX.  bonds.  Some  suggest  laying  bare 
from  the  foundation  to  the  neck,  but  this  is  mixed  unless  neck  happened 
to  be  a  technical  name  for  a  part  of  a  building :  cf.  Isa.  viii.  8,  xxx.  28. 

*  Heb.  his  spears  or  staves;  his  own  (Von  Orelli).  LXX.  iv  eKardcrei : 
see  Sinker,  pp.  56  ff.  Princes :  IPD  only  here.  Hitzig :  his  brave 
ones.  Ewald,  Wellhausen,  Davidson  :  'his  princes.  Delitzsch  :  his  hosts. 
LXX.  Ke<paXas  dwaaruv. 

5  So  Heb.  literally.  A  very  difficult  line.  On  LXX.  see  Sinker, 
pp.  60  f. 

^  For  "iDhj  heap  (so  A.V.),  read  some  part  of  IDPI,  to  foam.  LXX. 
TapdacrovTas :  cf.  Psalm  xlvi.  4. 

'  So  LXX.  N  (some  codd.),  softening  the  original  belly. 


156  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

At  the  sound  my  lips  tremble,^ 
Rottenness  enters  my  bones^ 
My  steps  shake  under  me? 
I  will .  ,  }  for  the  day  of  trouble 
That  pours  in  on  the  people? 

Though  the  fig-tree  do  not  blossom^ 
And  no  fruit  be  on  the  vines ^ 
Fail  the  produce  of  the  olive, 
And  the  fields  yield  no  meat, 
Cut  off  ^  be  the  flock  from  the  fold, 
And  no  cattle  in  the  stalls, 
Yet  in  the  LORD  will  I  exult, 
I  will  rejoice  in  the  God  of  my  salvation. 
Jehovah,  the  Lord,  is  my  mights- 
He  hath  made  my  feet  like  the  hinds\ 
And  on  my  heights  He  gives  me  to  march. 

This  Psalm,  whose  musical  signs  prove  it  to  have 
been  employed  in  the  liturgy  of  the  Jewish  Temple, 
has  also  largely  entered  into  the  use  of  the  Christian 

^  Or  my  lips  quiver  aloud — 71p7,  vocally  (Von  Orelli). 

^  By  the  Hebrew  the  bones  were  felt,  as  a  modern  man  feels  his 
nerves :  Psalms  xxxii.,  li. ;  Job. 

^  For  "IJ^'S,  for  which  LXX.  gives  t]  'e^ts  /xov,  read  HK^fc?,  my  steps ; 
and  for  nii^,  LXX.  erapdxdv,  1t:n>. 

*  n-13t?.  LXX.  avairaiKXOjxaL,  I  will  rest.  A.V. :  that  I  might  rest  in  the 
day  of  trouble.  Others  :  /  will  wait  for.  Wellhausen  suggests  DHSX 
(Isa.  1.  24),  /  ivill  take  comfort.  Sinker  takes  "W^^  as  the  simple 
relative  :  /  ivho  luill  ivait  patiently  for  the  day  of  doom.  Von  Orelli 
takes  it  as  the  conjunction  because. 

^  •IS'13^,  it  invades^  brings  up  troops  on  them,  only  in  Gen.  xlix.  19 
and  here.  Wellhausen  :  ivhich  invades  us.  Sinker :  for  the  coming 
up  against  the  people  of  him  who  shall  assail  it, 

"  rriSn  ;  but  LXX.  msn,  ov  KapTro<popi^(T€i,  bear  no  fruit 

•  For  "It:  Wellhausen  reads  "ItJJ.     LXX.  ^^fXiTrei'. 


Hab.  ii.]       "IN  THE  MIDST  OF  THE   YEARS"  157 

Church.  The  vivid  style,  the  sweep  of  vision,  the 
exultation  in  the  extreme  of  adversity  with  which  it 
closes,  have  made  it  a  frequent  theme  of  preachers  and 
of  poets.  St.  Augustine's  exposition  of  the  Septuagint 
version  spiritualises  almost  every  clause  into  a  de- 
scription of  the  first  and  second  advents  of  Christ.^ 
Calvin's  more  sober  and  accurate  learning  inter- 
preted it  of  God's  guidance  of  Israel  from  the  time 
of  the  Egyptian  plagues  to  the  days  of  Joshua  and 
Gideon,  and  made  it  enforce  the  lesson  that  He  who 
so  wonderfully  delivered  His  people  in  their  youth 
will  not  forsake  them  in  the  midway  of  their  career.^ 
The  closing  verses  have  been  torn  from  the  rest  to 
form  the  essence  of  a  large  number  of  hymns  in  many 
languages. 

For  ourselves  it  is  perhaps  most  useful  to  fasten 
upon  the  poet's  description  of  his  own  position  in  the 
midst  of  the  years,  and  like  him  to  take  heart,  amid 
our  very  similar  circumstances,  from  the  glorious  story 
of  God's  ancient  revelation,  in  the  faith  that  He  is  still 
the  same  in  might  and  in  purpose  of  grace  to  His  people. 
We,  too,  live  among  the  nameless  years.  We  feel  them 
about  us,  undistinguished  by  the  manifest  workings  of 
God,  slow  and  petty,  or,  at  the  most,  full  of  inarticu- 
late turmoil.  At  this  very  moment  we  suffer  from  the 
frustration  of  a  great  cause,  on  which  beheving  men 
had  set  their  hearts  as  God's  cause ;  Christendom  has 
received  .from  the  infidel  no  greater  reverse  since  the 
days  of  the  Crusades.  Or,  lifting  our  eyes  to  a  larger 
horizon,  we  are  tempted  to  see  about  us  a  wide, 
flat  waste  of  years.     It  is   nearly  nineteen  centuries 


'  De  Civitate  Dei,  XVIII.  32. 

'^  So  he  paraplirases  in  the  midst  of  the  year. 


158  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

since  the  great  revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  the  redemp- 
tion of  mankind,  and  all  the  wonders  of  the  Early 
Church.  We  are  far,  far  away  from  that,  and  unstirred 
by  the  expectation  of  any  crisis  in  the  near  future. 
We  stand  in  the  midst  of  the  years ,  equally  distant  from 
beginning  and  from  end.  It  is  the  situation  which 
Jesus  Himself  likened  to  the  long  double  watch  in  the 
middle  of  the  night — if  he  come  in  the  second  watch 
or  in  the  third  watch — against  whose  dulness  He 
warned  His  disciples.  How  much  need  is  there  at 
such  a  time  to  recall,  like  this  poet,  what  God  has  done 
— how  often  He  has  shaken  the  world  and  overturned 
the  nations,  for  the  sake  of  His  people  and  the  Divine 
causes  they  represent.  His  ways  are  everlasting.  As 
He  then  worked,  so  He  will  work  now  for  the  same 
ends  of  redemption.  Our  prayer  for  a  revival  of  His 
work  will  be  answered  before  it  is  spoken. 

It  is  probable  that  much  of  our  sense  of  the  stale- 
ness  of  the  years  comes  from  their  prosperity.  The  dull 
feeling  that  time  is  mere  routine  is  fastened  upon  our 
hearts  by  nothing  more  firmly  than  by  the  constant 
round  of  fruitful  seasons— that  fortification  of  comfort, 
that  regularity  of  material  supplies,  which  modern  life 
assures  to  so  many.  Adversity  would  brace  us  to  a 
new  expectation  of  the  near  and  strong  action  of  our 
God.  This  is  perhaps  the  meaning  of  the  sudden 
mention  of  natural  plagues  in  the  seventeenth  verse 
of  our  Psalm.  Not  in  spite  of  the  extremes  of  mis- 
fortune, but  just  because  of  them,  should  we  exult  in 
the  God  of  our  salvation  ;  and  realise  that  it  is  by 
discipline  He  makes  His  Church  to  feel  that  she  is  not 
marching  over  the  dreary  levels  of  nameless  years,  but 
on  our  high  places  He  makes  us  to  march. 

'*  Grant,  Almighty  God,  as  the  dulness  and  hardness 


Hab.iii.]       "/iV  THE  MIDST  OF  THE   YEARS"  159 

of  our  flesh  is  so  great  that  it  is  needful  for  us  to  be 
in  various  ways  afflicted — oh  grant  that  we  patiently 
bear  Thy  chastisement,  and  under  a  deep  feeling  of 
sorrow  flee  to  Thy  mercy  displayed  to  us  in  Christ,  so 
that  we  depend  not  on  the  earthly  blessings  of  this 
perishable  life,  but  relying  on  Thy  word  go  forward 
in  the  course  of  our  caUing,  until  at  length  we  be 
gathered  to  that  blessed  rest  which  is  laid  up  for  us 
in  heaven,   through  Christ   our  Lord.     Amen."  ^ 


'  From  the  prayer  with  which  Calvin  concludes  his  exposition  of 
Habakkuk. 


OBADIAH 


VOL.  II,  l6j  II 


And  Saviours  shall  come  up  on  Mount  Zion  to  judge  Mount  Esau, 
and  the  kingdom  shall  be  Jehovah's. 


J  62 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  BOOK  OF  OBADIAH 

THE  Book  of  Obadiah  is  the  smallest  among  the 
prophets,  and  the  smallest  in  all  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Yet  there  is  none  which  better  illustrates  many 
of  the  main  problems  of  Old  Testament  criticism.  It 
raises,  indeed,  no  doctrinal  issue  nor  any  question 
of  historical  accuracy.  All  that  it  claims  to  be  is 
77?^  Vision  of  Obadiah  ;  ^  and  this  vague  name,  with  no 
date  or  dwelling-place  to  challenge  comparison  with 
the  contents  of  the  book,  introduces  us  without  preju- 
dice to  the  criticism  of  the  latter.  Nor  is  the  book 
involved  in  the  central  controversy  of  Old  Testament 
scholarship,  the  date  of  the  Law.  It  has  no  reference 
to  the  Law.  Nor  is  it  made  use  of  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  more  freely,  therefore,  may  we  study 
the   literary   and   historical   questions   started  by   the 

1  iT1?y,  'Obadyah,  the  later  form  of  •in^'inV,  'Obadyahu  (a  name 
occurring  thrice  before  the  Exile  :  Ahab's  steward  who  hid  the 
prophets  of  the  Lord,  I  Kings  xviii.  3-7,  16;  of  a  man  in  David's 
house,  I  Chron.  xxvii.  19  ;  a  Levite  in  Josiah's  reign,  2  Chron.  xxxiv. 
12),  is  the  name  of  several  of  the  Jews  who  returned  from  exile: 
Ezra  viii.  9,  the  son  of  Jehi'el  (in  I  Esdras  viii.  'A/3a5tas)  ;  Neh.  x.  6, 
a  priest,  probably  the  same  as  the  Obadiah  in  xii.  25,  a  porter,  and 
the  J^'^^Vj  the  singer,  in  xi.  17,  who  is  called  HHiy  in  I  Chron. 
ix.  16.  Another  'Obadyah  is  given  in  the  eleventh  generation  from 
Saul,  I  Chron.  viii.  38,  ix.  44 ;  another  in  the  ro3'al  line  in  the  time 
of  the  Exile,  iii.  21  ;  a  man  of  Issachar,  vii.  3;  a  Gadite  under  David, 
xii.  9  ;  2i  prince  under  Jehoshaphat  sent  to  teach  in  the  cities  of  Judahf 

163 


i64  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

twenty-one  verses  which  compose  the  book.  Their 
brief  course  is  broken  by  differences  of  style,  and  by 
sudden  changes  of  outlook  from  the  past  to  the  future. 
Some  of  them  present  a  close  parallel  to  another 
passage  of  prophecy,  a  feature  which  when  present 
offers  a  difficult  problem  to  the  critic.  Hardly  any 
of  the  historical  allusions  are  free  from  ambiguity, 
for  although  the  book  refers  throughout  to  a  single 
nation — and  so  vividly  that  even  if  Edom  were  not 
named  we  might  still  discern  the  character  and  crimes 
of  that  bitter  brother  of  Israel — yet  the  conflict  of 
Israel  and  Edom  was  so  prolonged  and  so  monotonous 
in  its  cruelties,  that  there  are  few  of  its  many  centuries 
to  which  some  scholar  has  not  felt  himself  able  to 
assign,  in  part  or  whole,  Obadiah's  indignant  oration. 
The  little  book  has  been  tossed  out  of  one  century  into 
another  by  successive  critics,  till  there  exists  in  their 
estimates  of  its  date  a  difference  of  nearly  six  hundred 
years.^  Such  a  fact  seems,  at  first  sight,  to  convict 
criticism  either  of  arbitrariness  or  helplessness ;  ^  yet  a 
Httle  consideration  of  details  is  enough  to  lead  us  to 
an  appreciation  of  the  reasonable  methods  of  Old 
Testament   criticism,   and  of  its  indubitable   progress 

2  Chron.  xvii.  7.  With  the  Massoretic  points  n^lDV  means  worshipper 
oif  Jehovah  :  cf.  Obed-Edom,  and  so  in  the  Greek  form,  '0(35eiov,  of  Cod. 
B.  But  other  Codd.,  A,  6  and  5^,  give  'A/SSiov  or  'A^Seiov,  and  this, 
with  the  alternative  Hebrew  form  N'lnX  of  Neh.  xi.  17,  suggests 
rather  n""  12V  servant  of  Jehovah.  The  name  as  given  in  the  title 
is  probably  intended  to  be  that  of  an  historical  individual,  as  in 
the  titles  of  all  the  other  books ;  but  which,  or  if  any,  of  the  above 
mentioned  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Note,  however,  that  it  is  the  later 
post-exilic  form  of  the  name  that  is  used,  in  spite  of  the  book  occurring 
among  the  pre-exilic  prophets.  Some,  less  probably,  take  the  name 
Obadyah  to  be  symbolic  of  the  prophetic  character  of  the  writer. 

'  889  B.C.  Hofmann,  Keil,  etc. ;  and  soon  after  312,  Hitzig. 

2  Cf.  the  extraordinary  tirade  of  Pusey  in  his  Introd,  to  Obadiah. 


THE  BOOK  OF  OBADIAH  165 

towards  certainty,  in  spite  of  our  ignorance  of  large 
stretches  of  the  history  of  Israel.  To  the  student  of  the 
Old  Testament  nothing  could  be  more  profitable  than 
to  master  the  historical  and  literary  questions  raised 
by  the  Book  of  Obadiah,  before  following  them  out 
among  the  more  complicated  problems  which  are 
started  by  other  prophetical  books  in  their  relation  to 
the  Law  of  Israel,  or  to  their  own  titles,  or  to  claims 
made  for  them  in  the  New  Testament. 

The  Book  of  Obadiah  contains  a  number  of  verbal 
parallels  to  another  prophecy  against  Edom  which 
appears  in  Jeremiah  xlix.  7-22.  Most  critics  have 
regarded  this  prophecy  of  Jeremiah  as  genuine,  and 
have  assigned  it  to  the  year  604  B.C.  The  question 
is  whether  Obadiah  or  Jeremiah  is  the  earlier. 
Hitzig  and  Vatke  ^  answered  in  favour  of  Jeremiah ; 
and  as  the  Book  of  Obadiah  also  contains  a  description 
of  Edom's  conduct  in  the  day  of  Jerusalem's  over- 
throw by  Nebuchadrezzar,  in  586,  they  brought  the 
whole  book  down  to  post-exilic  times.  Very  forcible 
arguments,  however,  have  been  offered  for  Obadiah's 
priority.^  Upon  this  priorit}^,  as  well  as  on  the 
facts  that   Joel,   whom    they  take  to   be  early,  quotes 

*  The  first  in  his  Commentary  on  Die  Zwblf  Kleine  Propheten ) 
the  other  in  his  Einleitung. 

2  Caspari  {Der  Proph.  Ob.  ausgekgt  1842),  Ewald,  Graf,  Pusey, 
Driver,  Giesebrecht,  Wildeboer  and  Konig.  Cf.  Jer.  xUx.  9  with 
Ob.  5  ;  Jer.  xlix,  14  fF.  with  Ob.  1-4.  The  opening  of  Ob.  i  ff.  is  held  to 
be  more  in  its  place  than  where  it  occurs  in  the  middle  of  Jeremiah's 
passage.  The  language  of  Obadiah  is  "  terser  and  more  forcible. 
Jeremiah  seems  to  expand  Obadiah,  and  parts  of  Jeremiah  which 
have  no  parallel  in  Obadiah  are  like  Obadiah's  own  style  "  (Driver). 
This  strong  argument  is  enforced  in  detail  by  Pusey:  "Out  of  the 
sixteen  verses  of  which  the  prophecy  of  Jeremiah  against  Edora 
consists,  four  are  identical  with  those  of  Obadiah ;  a  fifth  embodies 


i66  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

from  Obadiah,  and  that  Obadiah's  book  occurs  among 
the  first  six — presumably  the  pre-exiKc  members — of 
the  Twelve,  a  number  of  scholars  have  assigned  all 
of  it  to  an  early  period  in  Israel's  history.  Some 
fix  upon  the  reign  of  Jehoshaphat,  when  Judah  was 
invaded  by  Edom  and  his  allies  Moab  and  Ammon, 
but  saved  from  disaster  through  Moab  and  Ammon 
turning  upon  the  Edomites  and  slaughtering  them.^ 
To  this  they  refer  the  phrase  in  Obadiah  9,  the  men 
of  thy  covenant  have  betrayed  thee.  Others  place  the 
whole  book  in  the  reign  of  Joram  of  Judah  (849 — 
842  B.C.),  when,  according  to  the  Chronicles,^  Judah 
was  invaded  and  Jerusalem  partly  sacked  by  Philistines 
and  Arabs.^  But  in  the  story  of  this  invasion, there 
is  no  mention  of  Edomites,  and  the  argument  which 
is  drawn  from  Joel's  quotation  of  Obadiah  fails  if  Joel, 
as  we  shall  see,  be  of  late  date.  With  greater  prudence 
Pusey  declines  to  fix  a  period. 

The  supporters  of  a  pre-exilic  origin  for  the  whole 
Book  of  Obadiah  have  to. explain  vv.  11- 1 4,  which 
appear    to    reflect    Edom's    conduct    at    the    sack   of 

a  verse  of  Obadiah's;  of  the  eleven  which  remain  ten  have  some 
turns  of  expression  or  idioms,  more  or  fevi^er,  which  occur  in  Jeremiah, 
either  in  these  prophecies  against  foreign  nations,  or  in  his  pro- 
phecies generally.  Now  it  would  be  wholly  improbable  that  a 
prophet,  selecting  verses  out  of  the  prophecy  of  Jeremiah,  should 
have  selected  precisely  those  which  contain  none  of  Jeremiah's 
characteristic  expressions ;  whereas  it  perfectly  fits  in  with  the 
supposition  that  Jeremiah  interwove  verses  of  Obadiah  with  his  own 
prophecy,  that  in  verses  so  interwoven  there  is  not  one  expression 
which  occurs  elsewhere  in  Jeremiah."  Similarly  Nowack,  Cowm.,  1897. 
'  2  Chron.  xx.  ^  2  Chron.  xxi.  I4-17- 

^  So  Delitzsch,  Keil,  Volck  in  Herzog's  Real.  Ency.  II.,  Orelli  and 
Kirkpatrick.  Delitzsch  indeed  suggests  that  the  prophet  may  have 
been  Obadiah  the  prince  appointed  by  Jehoshaphat  to  teach  in  the 
cities  of  Judah.     See  above,  p.  163,  n.  i. 


THE  BOOK  OF  OBADIAH  167 

Jerusalem  by  Nebuchadrezzar  in  586,  and  they  do 
so  in  two  ways.  Pusey  takes  the  verses  as  predictive 
of  Nebuchadrezzar's  siege.  OreUi  and  others  believe 
that  they  suit  better  the  conquest  and  plunder  of  the 
city  in  the  time  of  Jehoram.  But,  as  Calvin  has 
said,  "they  seem  to  be  mistaken  who  think  that 
Obadiah   lived   before   the  time  of  Isaiah." 

The  question,  however,  very  early  arose,  whether 
it  was  possible  to  take  Obadiah  as  a  unity.  Vv.  1-9 
are  more  vigorous  and  firm  than  vv.  10-21.  In  vv.  1-9 
Edom  is  destroyed  by  nations  who  are  its  allies ;  in 
vv.  10-21  it  is  still  to  fall  along  with  other  Gentiles 
in  the  general  judgment  of  the  Lord.^  Vv.  10-21 
admittedly  describe  the  conduct  of  the  Edomites  at 
the  overthrow  of  Jerusalem  in  586;  but  vv.  1-9  pro- 
bably reflect  earlier  events;  and  it  is  significant  that 
in  them  alone  occur  the  parallels  to  Jeremiah's  pro- 
phecy against  Edom  in  604.  On  some  of  these  grounds 
Ewald  regarded  the  little  book  as  consisting  of  two 
pieces,  both  of  which  refer  to  Edom,  but  the  first  of 
which  was  written  before  Jeremiah,  and  the  second 
is  post-exilic.  As  Jeremiah's  prophecy  has  some 
features  more  original  than  Obadiah's,^  he  traced  both 
prophecies  to  an  original  oracle  against  Edom,  of  which 
Obadiah  on  the  whole  renders  an  exact  version.  He 
fixed  the  date  of  this  oracle  in  the  earlier  days  of 
Isaiah,  when  Rezin  of  Syria  enabled  Edom  to  assert 
again  its  independence  of  Judah,  and  Edom  won  back 
Elath,   which   Uzziah  had  taken.^     Driver,  Wildeboer 

^  Driver,  Introd. 

2  Jer.  xlix.  9  and  16  appear  to  be  more  original  than  Ob.  3  and 
2b.  Notice  the  presence  in  Jer.  xlix.  16  of  IDV^Sn,  which  Obadiah 
omits. 

8  2  Kings  xiv.  22 ;  xvi.  6,  Revised  Version  margin. 


1 68  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

and  CornilP  adopt  this  theory,  with  the  exception  of 
the  period  to  which  Ewald  refers  the  original  oracle. 
According  to  them,  the  Book  of  Obadiah  consists 
of  two  pieces,  vv.  1-9  pre-exilic,  and  vv.  1021  post- 
exihc  and  descriptive  in  11-14  of  Nebuchadrezzar's 
sack  of  Jerusalem. 

This  latter  point  need  not  be  contested.^  But  is  it 
clear  that  1-9  are  so  different  from  10-21  that  they 
must  be  assigned  to  another  period  ?  Are  they 
necessarily  pre-exilic  ?  Wellhausen  thinks  not,  and 
has  constructed  still  another  theory  of  the  origin  of 
the  book,  which,  like  Vatke's,  brings  it  all  down  to 
the  period  after  the  Exile. 

There  is  no  mention  in  the  book  either  of  Assyria 
or  of  Babylonia.^  The  aUies  who  have  betrayed  Edom 
(ver.  7)  are  therefore  probably  those  Arabian  tribes 
who  surrounded  it  and  were  its  frequent  confederates.* 
They  are  described  as  sending  Edom  to  the  border  (t'b.). 
Wellhausen  thinks  that  this  can  only  refer  to  the  great 
northward  movement  of  Arabs  which  began  to  press 
upon  the  fertile  lands  to  the  south-east  of  Israel  during 
the  time  of  the  Captivity.  Ezekiel^  prophesies  that 
Ammon  and  Moab  will  disappear  before  the  Arabs,  and 
we  know  that  by  the  year  312  the  latter  were  firmly 

*  Eml.^  pp.  185  f. :  "  In  any  case  Obadiah  1-9  are  older  than  the 
fourth  year  of  Jehoiakim." 

-  "  That  the  verses  Obadiah  10  ff.  refer  to  this  event  [the  sack  of 
Jerusalem]  will  always  remain  the  most  natural  supposition,  for  the 
description  which  they  give  so  completely  suits  that  time  that  it  is 
not  possible  to  take  any  other  explanation  into  consideration." 

^  Edom  paid  tribute  to  Sennacherib  in  701,  and  to  Asarhaddon 
(681 — 669).  According  to  2  Kings  xxiv.  2  Nebuchadrezzar  sent 
Ammonites,  Moabites  and  Edomites  [for  DIX  read  DINJ  against 
Jehoiakim,  who  had  broken  his  oath  to  Babylonia. 

*  For  Edom's  alliances  with  Arab  tribes  cf.  Gen.  xxv.  13  with 
xxxvi.  3,  12,  etc.  5  Ezek.  xxv.  4,  5,  10. 


THE  BOOK  OF  OBADIAH  169 

settled  in  the  territories  of  Edom.^  Shortly  before  this 
the  Hagarenes  appear  in  Chronicles,  and  Se'ir  is  called 
by  the  Arabic  name  Gebal,''^  while  as  early  as  the  fifth 
century  "  Malachi "  ^  records  the  desolation  of  Edom's 
territory  by  the  jackals  of  the  wilderness,  and  the 
expulsion  of  the  Edomites,  who  will  not  return.  The 
Edomites  were  pushed  up  into  the  Negeb  of  Israel, 
and  occupied  the  territory  round,  and  to  the  south  of, 
Hebron  till  their  conquest  by  John  Hyrcanus  about 
130;  even  after  that  it  was  called  Idumaea.'^  Well- 
hausen  would  assign  Obadiah  1-7  to  the  same  stage 
of  this  movement  as  is  reflected  in  ''  Malachi "  i.  1-5  ; 
and,  apart  from  certain  parentheses,  would  therefore  take 
the  whole  of  Obadiah  as  a  unity  from  the  end  of  the 
fifth  century  before  Christ.  In  that  case  Giesebrecht 
argues  that  the  parallel  prophecy,  Jeremiah  xlix.  7-22, 
must  be  reckoned  as  one  of  the  passages  of  the 
Book  of  Jeremiah  in  which  post-exilic  additions  have 
been  inserted.*^ 

Our  criticism  of  this  theory  may  start  from  the 
seventh  verse  of  Obadiah  :  To  the  border  they  have  sent 
thee,  all  the  men  of  thy  covenant  have  betrayed  thee,  they 
have  overpowered  thee,  the  men  of  thy  peace.  On  our 
present  knowledge  of  the  history  of  Edom  it  is  im- 
possible to  assign  the  first  of  these  clauses  to  any 
period  before  the  Exile.  No  doubt  in  earlier  days 
Edom  was  more  than  once  subjected  to  Arab  razzias. 
But  up  to  the  Jewish  Exile  the  Edomites  were  still  in 

^  Diod.  Sic.  XIX.  94.  A  little  earlier  they  are  described  as  in 
possession  of  Iturea,  on  the  south-east  slopes  of  Anti-Lebanon 
(Arrian  II.  20,  4). 

'  Psalm  Ixxxiii.  8.  ^  i.   1-5. 

*  E.g.  in  the  New  Testament :  Mark  iii.  8. 

^  So  too  Nowack,  1897. 


170  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

possession  of  their  own  land.  So  the  Deuteronomist  ^ 
impHes,  and  so  Ezekiel  ^  and  perhaps  the  author  of 
Lamentations.^  Wellhausen's  claim,  therefore,  that 
the  seventh  verse  of  Obadiah  refers  to  the  expulsion 
of  Edomites  by  Arabs  in  the  sixth  or  fifth  century  B.C. 
may  be  granted.'*  But  does  this  mean  that  verses  i-6 
belong,  as  he  maintains,  to  the  same  period  ?  A 
negative  answer  seems  required  by  the  following  facts. 
To  begin  with,  the  seventh  verse  is  not  found  in  the 
parallel  prophecy  in  Jeremiah.  There  is  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  have  been  used  there,  if  that 
prophecy  had  been  compiled  at  a  time  when  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Edomites  was  already  an  accomplished 
fact.  But  both  by  this  omission  and  by  all  its  other 
features,  that  prophecy  suits  the  time  of  Jeremiah, 
and  we  may  leave  it,  therefore,  where  it  was  left  till 
the  appearance  of  Wellhausen's  theory — namely,  with 
Jeremiah  himself.^  Moreover  Jeremiah  xlix.  9  seems 
to  have  been  adapted  in  Obadiah  5  in  order  to  suit 
verse  6.  But  again,  Obadiah  1-6,  which  contains  so 
many  parallels  to  Jeremiah's  prophecy,  also  seems  to 
imply  that  the  Edomites  are  still  in  possession  of  their 
land.  The  nations  (we  may  understand  by  this  the 
Arab  tribes)  are  risen  against  Edom,  and  Edom  is 
already  despicable  in  face  of  them  (vv.  i,  2);  but  he 
has  not  yet  fallen,  any  more  than,  to  the  writer  of  Isaiah 

^  Deut,  ii.  5,  8,  12.  -  Ezek.  xxxv.,  esp.  2  and  15. 

'  iv.  21  :  yet  Uz  fails  in  LXX.,  and  some  take  |^"1{<  to  refer  to  the 
Holy  Land  itself.     Buhl,  Gesch.  der  Edomiter,  73. 

*  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  Edom's  treacherous  allies  were 
Assyrians  or  Babylonians,  for  even  if  the  phrase  "  men  of  thy  covenant " 
could  be  applied  to  those  to  whom  Edom  was  tributary,  the  Assyrian 
or  Babylonian  method  of  dealing  with  conquered  peoples  is  described 
by  saying  that  they  took  them  off  into  captivity,  not  that  they  sent 
them  to  the  border.  *  So  even  Cornill,  Einl? 


THE  BOOK  OF  OBADlAH 


xlv. — xlvii.,  who  uses  analogous  language,  Babylon  is 
already  fallen.  Edom  is  weak  and  cannot  resist  the 
Arab  razzias.  But  he  still  makes  his  eyrie  on  high  and 
says  :  Who  will  bring  me  down  ?  To  which  challenge 
Jehovah  replies,  not  *  I  have  brought  thee  down,'  but 
/  will  bring  thee  down.  The  post-exilic  portion  of 
Obadiah,  then,  I  take  to  begin  with  verse  7  ;  and  the 
author  of  this  prophecy  has  begun  by  incorporating 
in  vv.  1-6  a  pre-exilic  prophecy  against  Edom,  which 
had  been  already,  and  with  more  freedom,  used  by 
Jeremiah.  Verses  8-9  form  a  difficulty.  They  return 
to  the  future  tense,  as  if  the  Edomites  were  still  to 
be  cut  off  from  Mount  Esau.  But  verse  lO,  as 
Wellhausen  points  out,  follows  on  naturally  to  verse  7, 
and,  with  its  successors,  clearly  points  to  a  period  sub- 
sequent to  Nebuchadrezzar's  overthrow  of  Jerusalem. 
The  change  from  the  past  tense  in  vv.  lO-ii  to  the 
imperatives  of  12-14  need  cause,  in  spite  of  what  Pusey 
says,  no  difficulty,  but  may  be  accounted  for  by  the 
excited  feelings  of  the  prophet.  The  suggestion  has 
been  made,  and  it  is  plausible,  that  Obadiah  speaks  as 
an  eye-witness  of  that  awful  time.  Certainly  there 
is  nothing  in  the  rest  of  the  prophecy  (vv.  15-21) 
to  lead  us  to  bring  it  further  down  than  the  years 
following  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  Everything 
points  to  the  Jews  being  still  in  exile.  The  verbs 
which  describe  the  inviolateness  of  Jerusalem  (17),  and 
the  reinstatement  of  Israel  in  their  heritage  (17,  19), 
and  their  conquest  of  Edom  (18),  are  all  in  the  future. 
The  prophet  himself  appears  to  write  in  exile  (20). 
The  captivity  of  Jerusalem  is  in  Sepharad  {ib.)  and  the 
saviours  have  to  come  up  to   Mount  Zion ;    that  is  to 

say,  they  are  still  beyond  the  Holy  Land  (21).^ 

1  This  in  answer  to  Welliiausen  on  the  verse. 


172  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

The  one  difficulty  in  assigning  this  date  to  the  pro- 
phecy is  that  nothing  is  said  in  the  Hebrew  of  ver.  19 
about  the  re-occupation  of  the  hill-country  of  Judaea 
itself,  but  here  the  Greek  may  help  us.-^  Certainly 
every  other  feature  suits  the  early  days  of  the 
Exile. 

The  result  of  our  inquiry  is  that  the  Book  of 
Obadiah  was  written  at  that  time  by  a  prophet  in  exile, 
who  was  filled  by  the  same  hatred  of  Edom  as  filled 
another  exile,  who  in  Babylon  wrote  Psalm  cxxxvii. ; 
and  that,  like  so  many  of  the  exilic  writers,  he  started 
from  an  earlier  prophecy  against  Edom,  already  used 
by  Jeremiah.^  [Nowack  {Comm.,  1897)  takes  vv.  1-14 
(with  additions  in  vv.  i,  5,  6,  8  f.  and  12)  to  be  from 
a  date  not  long  after  the  Fall  of  Jerusalem,  alluded 
to  in  vv.  11-14;  and  vv.  15-21  to  belong  to  a  later 
period,  which  it  is  impossible  to  fix  exactly.] 

There  is  nothing  in  the  language  of  the  book  to 
disturb  this  conclusion.  The  Hebrew  of  Obadiah  is 
pure ;  unhke  its  neighbour,  the  Book  of  Jonah,  it 
contains  neither  Aramaisms  nor  other  symptoms  of 
decadence.  The  text  is  very  sound.  The  Septuagint 
Version  enables  us  to  correct  vv.  7  and  17,  offers  the 
true  division  between  vv.  9  and  10,  but  makes  an 
omission  which  leaves  no  sense  in  ver.  17.^  It  will 
be  best  to  give  all  the  twenty-one  verses  together 
before  commenting  on  their  spirit. 


^  See  below,  p.  175,  n.  6. 

^  Calvin,  while  refusing  in  his  introduction  to  Obadiah  to  fix  a 
date  (except  in  so  far  as  he  thinks  it  impossible  for  the  book  to  be 
earlier  than  Isaiah),  implies  throughout  his  commentary  on  the  book 
that  it  was  addressed  to  Edom  while  the  Jews  were  in  exile. 
See  his  remarks  on  vv.  18-20, 

^  There  is  a  mistranslation  in  ver.  18  :  THK^  is  rendered  by  Trvp6<popo5. 


THE  BOOK  OF  OBADIAH  173 


The  Vision  of  Obadiah. 

Thus  hath  the  Lord  Jehovah  spoken  concerning  Edom} 
**  A  report  have  we  heard  from  Jehovah^  and  a  mes- 
senger has  been  sent  through  the  nations^  '  Up  and  let  us 
rise  against  her  to  battle.*  Lo,  I  have  made  thee  small 
among  the  nations^  thou  art  very  despised !  The  arro- 
gance of  thy  heart  hath  misled  thee^  dweller  in  clefts  of  the 
Rock"" ;  the  height  is  his  dwelling^  that  saith  in  his  heart 
*  Who  shall  bring  me  down  to  earth  ! '  Though  thou 
build  high  as  the  eagle,  though  between  the  stars  thou  set 
thy  nest,  thence  will  I  bring  thee  down  — oracle  of  Jehovah. 
If  thieves  had  come  into  thee  by  night  (how  art  thou 
humbled !)^  woidd  they  not  steal  just  what  they  wanted? 
If  vine-croppers  had  come  into  thee,  wotdd  they  not  leave 
some  gleanings  ?  (flow  searched  out  is  Esau,  how  rifled  his 
treasures  I )  "  But  now  to  thy  very  border  have  they  sent 
thee,  all  the  men  of  thy  covenant  ^  have  betrayed  thee,  the 
men  of  thy  peace  have  overpowered  thee^ ;  they  kept  setting 
traps  for  thee — there  is  no  understanding  in  him  !  "  ^  Shall 

'  This  is  no  doubt  from  the  later  writer,  who  before  he  gives  the 
new  word  of  Jehovah  with  regard  to  Edom,  quotes  the  earHer  pro- 
phecy, marked  above  by  quotation  marks.  In  no  other  way  can  we 
explain  the  immediate  following  of  the  words  •*  Thus  hath  the  Lord 
spoken  "  with  "  We  have  heard  a  report,"  etc. 

2  '  Sela,'  the  name  of  the  Edomite  capital,  Petra. 

^  The  parenthesis  is  not  in  Jer.  xlix.  9 ;  Nowack  omits  it.  If 
spoilers  occurs  in  Heb.  before  by  night:  delete. 

*  Antithetic  to  thieves  and  spoilers  by  night,  as  the  sending  of  the 
people  to  their  border  is  antithetic  to  the  thieves  taking  only  what 
they  wanted. 

^  "yorb,  thy  bread,  which  here  follows,  is  not  found  in  the  LXX., 
and  is  probably  an  error  due  to  a  mechanical  repetition  of  the  letters 
of  the  previous  word. 

®  Again  perhaps  a  quotation  from  an  earlier  prophecy :  Nowack 
count  s  it  from  another  hand.    Mark  the  sudden  change  to  the  future. 


174  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

it  not  be  in  that  day — oracle  of  Jehovah — that  I  will  cause 
the  wise  men  to  perish  from  Edom,  and  understanding 
from  Mount  Esau  ?  And  thy  heroes,  O  Teman,  shall  be 
dismayed,  till'^  every  man  be  cut  off  from  Mount  Esau." 
For  the  slaughter, "^  for  the  outraging  of  thy  brother  Jacob, 
shame  doth  cover  thee,  and  thou  art  cut  off  for  ever.  In 
the  day  of  thy  standing  aloof, ^  in  the  day  when  strangers 
took  captive  his  substance,  and  aliens  came  into  his  gates,'^ 
and  they  cast  lots  on  Jerusalem,  even  thou  wert  as  one 
of  them  /  Ah,  gloat  not  ^  up07i  the  day  of  thy  brother,^ 
the  day  of  his  misfortune  '' ;  exult  not  over  the  sons  of 
Judah  in  the  day  of  their  destruction,  and  make  not  thy 
mouth  large  ®  in  the  day  of  distress.  Come  not  up  into  the 
gate  of  My  people  in  the  day  of  their  disaster.  Gloat  not 
thou,  yea  thou,  upon  his  ills,  in  the  day  of  his  disaster, 
nor  put  forth  thy  hand  to  his  substance  in  the  day  of  his 
disaster,  nor  stand  at  the  parting  ^  of  the  ways  (?)  to  cut 
off  his  fugitives;  nor  arrest  his  escaped  ones  in  the  day 
of  distress. 

For  near  is  the  day  of  Jehovah,  upon  all  the  nations — 

'  Heb.  so  that. 

^  With  LXX.  transfer  this  expression  from  the  end  of  the  ninth  to 
the  beginning  of  the  tenth  verse. 

^  "  When  thou  didst  stand  on  the  opposite  side." — Calvin. 

^  Plural ;  LXX.  and  Qeri. 

'  Sudden  change  to  imperative.  The  English  versions  render,  TJtoii 
shouldest  not  have  looked  on,  etc. 

"  Cf.  Ps.  cxxxvii.  7,  the  day  of  Jerusalem. 

'  The  day  of  his  strangeness  =  aliena  fortmta. 

*  With  laughter.  Wellhausen  and  Nowack  suspect  ver.  13  as  an 
intrusion. 

^  plD  does  not  elsewhere  occur.  It  means  cleaving,  and  the 
LXX.  render  it  by  5i€k^o\i^,  i.e.  pass  between  mountains.  The 
Arabic  forms  from  the  same  root  suggest  the  sense  of  a  band  of  men 
standing  apart  from  the  main  body  on  the  watch  for  stragglers 
(cf.  njj,  in  ver.  1 1).  Calvin,  "  the  going  forth  " ;  Gratz  |*"ID,  breach,  but 
see  Nowack. 


THE  BOOK  OF  OBADIAH  175 

as  thou  hast  done,  so  shall  it  be  done  to  thee :  thy  deed 
shall  come  back  on  thine  own  head} 

For  as  ye  '^  have  drunk  on  my  holy  mount,  all  the 
nations  shall  drink  continuously,  drink  and  reel,  and  be 
as  though  they  had  not  been.^  But  on  Mount  Zion  shall 
be  refuge,  and  it  shall  be  inviolate,  and  the  house  of  Jacob 
shall  inherit  those  who  have  disinherited  them}  For  the 
house  of  Jacob  shall  be  fire,  and  the  house  of  Joseph  a 
flame,  but  the  house  of  Esau  shall  become  stubble,  and 
they  shall  kindle  upon  them  and  devour  them,  and  there 
shall  not  one  escape  of  the  house  of  Esau — for  Jehovah 
hath  spoken. 

And  the  Negeb  shall  possess  Mount  Esau,  and  the 
Shephelah  the  Philistines,^  and  the  Mountain^  shall 
possess  Ephraim  and  the  field  of  Samaria,^  and 
Benjamin  shall  possess  Gilead.  And  the  exiles  of  this 
host  ^    of  the    children   of  Israel  shall  possess  (?)    the 


^  Wellhausen  proposes  to  put  the  last  two  clauses  immediately 
after  ver.  14. 

'  The  prophet  seems  here  to  turn  to  address  his  own  countrymen : 
the  drinking  will  therefore  take  the  meaning  of  suffering  God's 
chastising  wrath.  Others,  like  Calvin,  take  it  in  the  opposite  sense, 
and  apply  it  to  Edom  :  "  as  ye  have  exulted,"  etc. 

3  Reel^ior  ^]h  we  ought  (with  Wellhausen)  probably  to  read 
•lyi  :  cf.  Lam.  iv.  2.  Some  codd.  of  LXX.  omit  all  the  nations  .  .  . 
continuously,  drink  and  reel.  But  N  ".*  A  and  Q  have  all  the  nations 
shall  drink  wine. 

*  So  LXX.     Heb.  their  heritages. 

*  That  is  the  reverse  of  the  conditions  after  the  Jews  went  into 
exile,  for  then  the  Edomites  came  up  on  the  Negeb  and  the  Philistines 
on  the  Shephelah. 

®  I.e.  of  Judah,  the  rest  of  the  country  outside  the  Negeb  and 
Shephelah.     The  reading  is  after  the  LXX. 

'  Whereas  the  pagan  inhabitants  of  these  places  came  upon  the 
hill-country  of  Judaea  during  the  Exile. 

*  An  unusual  form  of  the  word.  Ewald  would  read  coast.  The 
verse  is  obscure. 


176  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

land^  of  the  Canaanites  unto  Sarephath,  and  the  exiles  of 
Jerusalem  who  are  in  Sepharad"^  shall  inherit  the  cities 
of  the  Negeb.  And  saviours  shall  come  up  on  Mount 
Zion  to  judge  Mount  Esau,  and  the  kingdom  shall  be 
JehovaUs. 


1  So  LXX. 

^  The  Jews  themselves  thought  this  to  be  Spain  :  so  Onkelos,  who 
translates  *T")SD  by  SJ^SpX  =  Hispania.  Hence  the  origin  of  the 
name  Sephardim  Jews.  The  supposition  that  it  is  Sparta  need 
hardly  be  noticed.  Our  decision  must  lie  between  two  other  regions 
— the  one  in  Asia  Minor,  the  other  in  S.W.  Media.  First^  in  the 
ancient  Persian  inscriptions  there  thrice  occurs  (great  Behistun  in- 
scription, I.  15;  inscription  of  Darius,  11.  12,  13;  and  inscription  of 
Darius  from  Naksh-i-Rustam)  (Jlparda.  It  is  connected  with  Janua  or 
Ionia  and  Katapatuka  or  Cappadocia  (Schrader,  Cxin.  Iriscr.  and  O.  T., 
Germ,  ed.,  p.  446;  Eng.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  145)  ;  and  Sayce  shows  that,  called 
Shaparda  on  a  late  cuneiform  inscription  of  275  B.C.,  it  must  have 
lain  in  Bithynia  or  Galatia  {Higher  Criticism  and  Monuments,  p.  483). 
Darius  made  it  a  satrapy.  It  is  clear,  as  Cheyne  says  {Foimders  of 
O.  T.  Criticism,  p.  312),  that  those  who  on  other  grounds  are  convinced 
of  the  post-exilic  origin  of  this  part  of  Obadiah,  of  its  origin  in  the 
Persian  period,  will  identify  Sepharad  with  this  ^parda,  which  both 
he  and  Sayce  do.  But  to  those  of  us  who  hold  that  this  part  of 
Obadiah  is  from  the  time  of  the  Babylonian  exile,  as  we  have  sought 
to  prove  above  on  pp.  171  f,  then  Sepharad  cannot  be  Cparda,  for 
Nebuchadrezzar  did  not  subdue  Asia  Minor  and  cannot  have  trans- 
ported Jews  there.  Are  we  then  forced  to  give  up  our  theory  of  the 
date  of  Obadiah  10-21  in  the  Babylonian  exile  ?  By  no  means.  For, 
second,  the  inscriptions  of  Sargon,  king  of  Assyria  (721 — 705  b.c), 
mention  a  Shaparda,  in  S.W.  Media  towards  Babylonia,  a  name 
phonetically  correspondent  to  ^"ISD  (Schrader,  I.e.),  and  the  identifi- 
cation of  the  two  is  regarded  as  "  exceedingly  probable  "  by  Fried. 
Delitzsch  (JVo  lag  das  Paradies  ?  p.  249).  But  even  if  this  should  be 
shown  to  be  impossible,  and  if  the  identification  Sepharad  =  Cparda 
be  proved,  that  would  not  oblige  us  to  alter  our  opinion  as  to  the 
date  of  ethe  whole  of  Obadiah  10-21,  for  it  is  possible  that  later 
additions,  including  Sepharad,  have  been  made  to  the  passage, 


CHAPTER  XIV 

EDOM  AND  ISRAEL 
Obadiah  I -2 1 

IF  the  Book  of  Obadiah  presents  us  with  some  of 
the  most  difficult  questions  of  criticism,  it  raises 
besides  one  of  the  hardest  ethical  problems  in  all  the 
vexed  history  of  Israel. 

Israel's  fate  has  been  to  work  out  their  calling  in 
the  world  through  antipathies  rather  than  by  sym- 
pathies, but  of  all  the  antipathies  which  the  nation 
experienced  none  was  more  bitter  and  more  constant 
than  that  towards  Edom.  The  rest  of  Israel's  enemies 
rose  and  fell  like  waves :  Canaanites  were  succeeded 
by  Phihstines,  Philistines  by  Syrians,  Syrians  by 
Greeks.  Tyrant  rehnquished  his  grasp  of  God's 
people  to  tyrant :  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  Babylonian, 
Persian ;  the  Seleucids,  the  Ptolemies.  But  Edom 
was  always  there,  and  fretted  his  anger  for  ever} 
From  that  far  back  day  when  their  ancestors  wrestled 
in  the  womb  of  Rebekah  to  the  very  eve  of  the 
Christian  era,  when  a  Jewish  king^  dragged  the 
Idumeans  beneath  the  yoke  of  the  Law,  the  two 
peoples  scorned,  hated  and  scourged  each  other,  with 
a  relentlessness  that  finds  no  analogy,  between  kindred 

1  Amos  i.  II.     See  Vol.  I.,  p.  129. 
"^  John  Hyrcanua,  aboUt  i  jb  b.c. 
VOL.  II.  177  12 


178  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

and  neighbour  nations,  anywhere  else  in  history. 
About  1030  David,  about  130  the  Hasmoneans,  were 
equally  at  war  with  Edom  ;  and  few  are  the  prophets 
between  those  distant  dates  who  do  not  cry  for 
vengeance  against  him  or  exult  in  his  overthrow. 
The  Book  of  Obadiah  is  singular  in  this,  that  it  con- 
tains nothing  else  than  such  feelings  and  such  cries. 
It  brings  no  spiritual^jnessage.  It  speaks  no  word 
of  sin,  or  of  righteousness,  or  of  mercy,  but  only  doom 
upon  Edom  in  bitter  resentment  at  his  cruelties,  and 
in  exultation  that,  as  he  has  helped  to  disinherit  Israel, 
Israel  shall  disinherit  him.  Such  a  book  among  the 
prophets  surprises  us.  It  seems  but  a  dark  surge 
staining  the  stream  of  revelation,  as  if  to  exhibit 
through  what  a  muddy  channel  these  sacred  waters 
have  been  poured  upon  the  world.  Is  the  book  only 
an  outbreak  of  Israel's  selfish  patriotism  ?  This  is  the 
question  we  have  to  discuss  in  the  present  chapter. 

Reasons  for  the  hostility  of  Edom  and  Israel  are  not 
far  to  seek.  The  two  nations  were  neighbours  with 
bitter  memories  and  rival  interests.  Each  of  them  was 
possessed  by  a  strong  sense  of  distinction  from  the 
rest  of  mankind,  which  goes  far  to  justify  the  story 
of  their  common  descent.  But  while  in  Israel  this 
pride  was  chiefly  due  to  the  consciousness  of  a  peculiar 
destiny  not  yet  realised — a  pride  painful  and  hungry 
— in  Edom  it  took  the  complacent  form  of  satisfaction 
in  a  territory  of  remarkable  isolation  and  self-sufficiency, 
in  large  stores  of  wealth,  and  in  a  reputation  for  worldly 
wisdom — a  fulness  that  recked  little  of  the  future,  and 
felt  no  need  of  the  Divine. 

The  purple  mountains,  into  which  the  wild  sons  of 
Esau  clambered,  run  out  from  Syria  upon  the  destrt, 
sb*me  h\in)Jr'efd  inires  by  t^vfent■y  of  pto'r'phyr'y  and  tfed 


Obad.  I-2I]  EDOM  AND  ISRAEL  179 

sandstone.  They  are  said  to  be  the  finest  rock  scenery 
in  the  world.  "  Salvator  Rosa  never  conceived  so 
savage  and  so  suitable  a  haunt  for  banditti."  ^  From 
Mount  Hor,  which  is  their  summit,  you  look  down 
upon  a  maze  of  mountains,  cliffs,  chasms,  rocky  shelves 
and  strips  of  valley.  On  the  east  the  range  is  but  the 
crested  edge  of  a  high,  cold  plateau,  covered  for  the 
most  part  by  stones,  but  with  stretches  of  corn  land 
and  scattered  woods.  The  western  walls,  on  the 
contrary,  spring  steep  and  bare,  black  and  red,  from 
the  yellow  of  the  desert  'Arabah.  The  interior  is 
reached  by  defiles,  so  narrow  that  two  horsemen  may 
scarcely  ride  abreast,  and  the  sun  is  shut  out  by 
the  overhanging  rocks.  Eagles,  hawks  and  other 
mountain  birds  fly  screaming  round  the  traveller. 
Little  else  than  wild-fowls'  nests  are  the  villages ; 
human  eyries  perched  on  high  shelves  or  hidden  away 
in  caves  at  the  ends  of  the  deep  gorges.  There  is 
abundance  of  water.  The  gorges  are  filled  with 
tamarisks,  oleanders  and  wild  figs.  Besides  the  wheat 
lands  on  the  eastern  plateau,  the  wider  defiles  hold 
fertile  fields  and  terraces  for  the  vine.  Mount  Esau  is, 
therefore,  no  mere  citadel  with  supplies  for  a  limited 
siege,  but  a  well-stocked,  well-watered  country,  full  of 
food  and  lusty  men,  yet  lifted  so  high,  and  locked  so 
fast  by  precipice  and  slippery  mountain,  that  it  calls 
for  little  trouble  of  defence.  Dweller  in  the  clefts  of  the 
rock,  the  height  is  his  habitation,  that  saith  in  his  heart: 
Who  shall  bring  me  down  to  earth  ?  ^ 

On  this  rich  fortress-land  the  Edomites  enjoyed  a 
civilisation  far  above  that  of  the  tribes  who  swarmed 

*  Irby  and  Mangles'  Travels :  cf.  Burckhardt's  Travels  in  Syria,  and 
Doughty,  Arabia  Deseyia,  I. 
2  Obadiah  3. 


i8o  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

upon  the  surrounding  deserts;  and  at  the  same  time 
they  were  cut  off  from  the  lands  of  those  Syrian  nations 
who  were  their  equals  in  culture  and  descent.  When 
Edom  looked  out  of  himself,  he  looked  doivn  and  across 
— down  upon  the  Arabs,  whom  his  position  enabled 
him  to  rule  with  a  loose,  rough  hand,  and  across  at 
his  brothers  in  Palestine,  forced  by  their  more  open 
territories  to  make  aUiances  with  and  against  each 
other,  from  all  of  which  he  could  afford  to  hold  himself 
free.  That  alone  was  bound  to  exasperate  them.  In 
Edom  himself  it  appears  to  have  bred  a  want  of 
sympathy,  a  habit  of  keeping  to  himself  and  ignoring 
the  claims  both  of  pity  and  of  kinship — with  which 
he  is  charged  by  all  the  prophets.  He  corrupted  his 
natural  feelingSy  and  watched  his  passion  for  ever}  Thou 
stoodest  aloof!  ^ 

This  self-sufficiency  was  aggravated  by  the  position 
of  the  country  among  several  of  the  main  routes  of 
ancient  trade.  The  masters  of  Mount  Se'ir  held  the 
harbours  of  'Akaba,  into  which  the  gold  ships  came 
from  Ophir.  The}^  intercepted  the  Arabian  caravans 
and  cut  the  roads  to  Gaza  and  Damascus.  Petra,  in 
the  very  heart  of  Edom,  was  in  later  times  the  capital 
of  the  Nabatean  kingdom,  whose  commerce  rivalled  that 
of  Phoenicia,  scattering  its  inscriptions  from  Teyma  in 
Central  Arabia  up  to  the  very  gates  of  Rome.^  The 
earlier  Edomites  were  also  traders,  middlemen  between 
Arabia  and  the  Phosnicians ;  and  they  filled  their 
caverns  with  the  wealth  both  of  East  and  West.* 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  was  this  which  first 
drew  the  envious  hand  of  Israel  upon  a  land  so  cut 


'  Amos  i, :  cf.  Ezck.  xxxv.  5. 

2  Obatiiah  10.  *  Obadidh  6. 


Obad.  I-2I]  EDOM  AND  ISRAEL  l8l 

off  from  their  own  and  so  difficult  of  invasion.  Hear 
the  exultation  of  the  ancient  prophet  whose  words 
Obadiah  has  borrowed :  How  searched  out  is  Esau, 
and  his  hidden  treasures  rifled  /  ^  But  the  same  is  clear 
from  the  history.  Solomon,  Jehoshaphat,  Amaziah, 
Uzziah  and  other  Jewish  invaders  of  Edom  were  all 
ambitious  to  command  the  Eastern  trade  through  Elath 
and  Ezion-geber.  For  this  it  was  necessary  to  subdue 
Edom  ;  and  the  frequent  reduction  of  the  country  to  a 
vassal  state,  with  the  revolts  in  which  it  broke  free, 
were  accompanied  by  terrible  cruelties  upon  both 
sides.^  Every  century  increased  the  tale  of  bitter 
memories  between  the  brothers,  and  added  the  horrors 
of  a  war  of  revenge  to  those  of  a  war  for  gold. 

The  deepest  springs  of  their  hate,  however,  bubbled 
in  their  blood.  In  genius,  temper  and  ambition,  the 
two  peoples  were  of  opposite  extremes.  It  is  very 
singular  that  we  never  hear  in  the  Old  Testament  of 
the  Edomite  gods.  Israel  fell  under  the  fascination  of 
every  neighbouring  idolatry,  but  does  not  even  mention 
that  Edom  had  a  rehgion.  Such  a  silence  cannot  be 
accidental,  and  the  inference  which  it  suggests  is 
confirmed  by  the  picture  drawn  of  Esau  himself.  Esau 
is  a  profane  person  ^ ;  with  no  conscience  of  a  birthright, 
no  faith  in  the  future,  no  capacity  for  visions ;  dead  to 
the  unseen,  and  clamouring  only  for  the  satisfaction 
of  his  appetites.  The  same  was  probably  the  character 
of  his  descendants ;  who  had,  of  course,  their  own 
gods,  like  every  other  people  in  that  Semitic  world,* 

*  Verse  6. 

^  See  the  details  in  Vol.  I.,  pp.  129  f. 

^  Heb.  xii.  16. 

■*  We  even  know  the  names  of  some  of  these  deities  from  the 
theophorous  names  of  Edomites :  e.g.  Baal-chanan  (Gen.  xxxvi.  38)^ 
Hadad  {tb.  35  ;  1  Kings  xi,  14  ff.)  ;  Malikram,  Kausmalaka,  Kausgabri 


1 82  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

but  were  essentially  irreligious,  living  for  food,  spoil 
and  vengeance,  with  no  national  conscience  or  ideals — 
a  kind  of  people  who  deserved  even  more  than  the 
Philistines  to  have  their  name  descend  to  our  times 
as  a  symbol  of  hardness  and  obscurantism.  It  is  no 
contradiction  to  all  this  that  the  one  intellectual  quality 
imputed  to  the  Edomites  should  be  that  of  shrewdness 
and  a  wisdom  which  was  obviously  worldly.  The 
wise  men  of  Edom,  the  cleverness  of  Mount  Esau  ^  were 
notorious.  It  is  the  race  which  has  given  to  history 
only  the  Herods — clever,  scheming,  ruthless  statesmen, 
as  able  as  they  were  false  and  bitter,  as  shrewd  in 
policy  as  they  were  destitute  of  ideals.  That  fox^ 
cried  Christ,  and  crying  stamped  the  race. 

But  of  such  a  national  character  Israel  was  in  all 
points,  save  that  of  cunning,  essentially  the  reverse. 
Who  had  such  a  passion  for  the  ideal  ?  Who  such  a 
hunger  for  the  future,  such  hopes  or  such  visions? 
Never  more  than  in  the  day  of  their  prostration,  when 
Jerusalem  and  the  sanctuary  fell  in  ruins,  did  they  feel 
and  hate  the  hardness  of  the  brother,  who  stood  aloof 
and  made  large  his  mouth? 

It  is,  therefore,  no  mere  passion  for  revenge,  which 
inspires  these  few,  hot  verses  of  Obadiah.  No  doubt, 
bitter  memories  rankle  in  his  heart.  He  eagerly  re- 
peats ^  the  voices  of  a  day  when  Israel  matched  Edom 
in  cruelty  and  was  cruel  for  the  sake  of  gold,  when 
Judah's  kings  coveted  Esau's  treasures  and  were  foiled. 

(on  Assyrian  inscriptions :  Schrader,  K.A.T.-  150,613);  KocaSapos, 
KcxTjSaj'os,  Ko(r77jpoj,  'Koavaravo^  {Rev.  arche'ol.  1 870,  I.  pp.  109  ff., 
170  ff.)>  Koo-TojSapos  (Jos.,  XV.  Ant.  vii.  9).  See  Baethgen,  Beitrage 
zur  Semit.  Rel.  Gesch.,  pp.  10  ff. 

'  Obadiah  8:  cf.  Jer.  xlix.  7. 

^  Obadiah  II,  12  :  cf.  Ezek.  xxxv.  12  f. 

^  1-5  or  6.     See  above,  pp.  167,  171  f. 


Obad.  I -2 1]  EDOM  AND  ISRAEL  183 

No  doubt  there  is  exultation  in  the  news  he  hears,  that 
these  treasures  have  been  rifled  by  others ;  that  all 
the  cleverness  of  this  proud  people  has  not  availed 
against  its  treacherous  allies ;  and  that  it  has  been 
sent  packing  to  its  borders.^  But  beneath  such  savage 
tempers,  there  beats  the  heart  which  has  fought  and 
suffered  for  the  highest  things,  and  now  in  its  martyr- 
dom sees  them  bafQed  and  mocked  by  a  people  without 
vision  and  without  feeling.  Justice,  mercy  and  truth ; 
the  education  of  humanity  in  the  law  of  God,  the 
establishment  of  His  will  upon  earth — these  things,  it 
is  true,  are  not  mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Obadiah,  but 
it  is  for  the  sake  of  some  dim  instinct  of  them  that  its 
wrath  is  poured  upon  foes  whose  treachery  and  malice 
seek  to  make  them  impossible  by  destroying  the  one 
people  on  earth  who  then  believed  and  lived  for  them. 
Consider  the  situation.  It  was  the  darkest  hour  of 
Israel's  history.  City  and  Temple  had  fallen,  the  people 
had  been  carried  away.  Up  over  the  empty  land  the 
waves  of  mocking  heathen  had  flowed,  there  was  none 
to  beat  them  back.  A  Jew  who  had  lived  through 
these  things,  who  had  seen  ^  the  day  of  Jerusalem's 
fall  and  passed  from  her  ruins  under  the  mocking  of 
her  foes,  dared  to  cry  back  into  the  large  mouths  they 
made :  Our  day  is  not  spent ;  we  shall  return  with 
the  things  we  live  for ;  the  land  shall  yet  be  ours,  and 
the  kingdom  our  God's. 

Brave,  hot  heart  I  It  shall  be  as  thou  sayest ;  it 
shall  be  for  a  brief  season.  But  in  exile  thy  people 
and  thou  have  first  to  learn  many  more  things  about 
the  heathen  than  you  can  now  feel.  Mix  with  them 
on  that  far-off  coast,  from  which  thou  criest.  Learn 
what  the  world  is,  and  that  more  beautiful  and  more 

*  Verse  7.  ^  See  above,  p.  171. 


1 84  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

possible  than  the  narrow  rule  which  thou  hast  promised 
to  Israel  over  her  neighbours  shall  be  that  worldwide 
service  of  man,  of  which,  in  fifty  years,  all  the  best  of 
thy  people  shall  be  dreaming. 

The  Book  of  Obadiah  at  the  beginning  of  the  Exile, 
and  the  great  prophecy  of  the  Servant  at  the  end  of 
it — how  true  was  his  word  who  said :  He  that  goeth 
forth  and  weepeth,  bearing  precious  seed,  shall  doubtless 
come  again  with  rejoicing,  bringing  his  sheaves  with  hint. 


The  subsequent  history  of  Israel  and  Edom  may  be 
quickly  traced.  When  the  Jews  returned  from  exile 
they  found  the  Edomites  in  possession  of  all  the  Negeb, 
and  of  the  Mountain  of  Judah  far  north  of  Hebron. 
The  old  warfare  was  resumed,  and  not  till  130  b.c. 
(as  has  been  already  said)  did  a  Jewish  king  bring 
the  old  enemies  of  his  people  beneath  the  Law  of 
Jehovah.  The  Jewish  scribes  transferred  the  name 
of  Edom  to  Rome,  as  if  it  were  the  perpetual  symbol 
of  that  hostility  of  the  heathen  world,  against  which 
Israel  had  to  work  out  her  calling  as  the  peculiar 
people  of  God.  Yet  Israel  had  not  done  with  the 
Edomites  themselves.  Never  did  she  encounter  foes 
more  dangerous  to  her  higher  interests  than  in  her 
Idumean  dynasty  of  the  Herods;  while  the  savage 
relentlessness  of  certain  Edomites  in  the  last  struggles 
against  Rome  proved  that  the  fire  which  had  scorched 
her  borders  for  a  thousand  years,  now  burned  a  still 
more  fatal  flame  within  her.  More  than  anything 
else,  this  Edomite  fanaticism  provoked  the  splendid 
suicide  of  Israel,  which  beginning  in  Galilee  was  con- 
summated upon  the  rocks  of  Masada,  half-way  between 
Jerusalem  and  Mount  Esau. 


INTRODUCTION  TO   THE  PROPHETS   OF 
THE  PERSIAN  PERIOD 

(539—331   B.C.) 


185 


"The  exiles  returned  from  Babylon  to  found  not  a  kingdom  but 
a  church." 

KiRKPATRICK. 

"Israel  is  no  longer  a  kingdom,  but  a  colony"  (p.   189). 


186 


CHAPTER   XV 

ISRAEL   UNDER   THE  PERSIANS  (539—331  b.c.) 

THE  next  group  of  the  Twelve  Prophets — Haggai, 
Zechariah,  Malachi  and  perhaps  Joel — fall  within 
the  period  of  the  Persian  Empire.  The  Persian  Empire 
was  founded  on  the  conquest  of  Babylon  by  Cyrus  in 
539  B.C.,  and  it  fell  in  the  defeat  of  Darius  III.  by 
Alexander  the  Great  at  the  battle  of  Gaugamela,  or 
Arbela,  in  331.  The  period  is  thus  one  of  a  little  more 
than  two  centuries. 

During  all  this  time  Israel  were  the  subjects  of  the 
Persian  monarchs,  and  bound  to  them  and  their  civi- 
lisation by  the  closest  of  ties.  They  owed  them  their 
liberty  and  revival  as  a  separate  community  upon  its 
own  land.  The  Jewish  State — if  we  may  give  that 
title  to  what  is  perhaps  more  truly  described  as  a 
Congregation  or  Commune — was  part  of  an  empire 
which  stretched  from  the  ^Egean  to  the  Indus,  and  the 
provinces  of  which  were  held  in  close  intercourse  by 
the  first  system  of  roads  and  posts  that  ever  brought 
different  races  together.  Jews  were  scattered  almost 
everywhere  across  this  empire.  A  vast  number  still 
remained  in  Babylon,  and  there  were  many  at  Susa 
and  Ecbatana,  two  of  the  royal  capitals.  Most  of  these 
were  subject  to  the  full  influence  of  Aryan  manners 
and  religion  ;  some  were  even  members  of  the  Persian 
Court  and  had  access  to  the  Royal  Presence.     In  the 

187 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


Delta  of  Egypt  there  were  Jewish  settlements,  and 
Jews  were  found  also  throughout  Syria  and  along  the 
coasts,  at  least,  of  Asia  Minor.  Here  they  touched 
another  civilisation,  destined  to  impress  them  in  the 
future  even  more  deeply  than  the  Persian.  It  is  the 
period  of  the  struggle  between  Asia  and  Europe,  between 
Persia  and  Greece  :  the  period  of  Marathon  and  Ther- 
mopylae, of  Salamis  and  Platsea,  of  Xenophon  and  the 
Ten  Thousand.  Greek  fleets  occupied  Cyprus  and 
visited  the  Delta.  Greek  armies — in  the  pay  of  Persia 
— trod  for  the  first  time  the  soil  of  Syria.^ 

In  such  a  world,  dominated  for  the  first  time  by  the 
Aryan,  Jews  returned  from  exile,  rebuilt  their  Temple 
and  resumed  its  ritual,  revived  Prophecy  and  codified 
the  Law :  in  short,  restored  and  organised  Israel  as  the 
people  of  God,  and  developed  their  religion  to  those 
ultimate  forms  in  which  it  has  accomplished  its  supreme 
service  to  the  world. 

In  this  period  Prophecy  does  not  maintain  that 
lofty  position    which    it    has   hitherto  held  in  the  life 


'  The  chief  authorities  for  this  period  are  as  follows  : — A.  Ancient : 
the  inscriptions  of  Nabonidus,  last  native  King  of  Babylon,  Cyrus 
and  Darius  I,;  the  Hebrew  writings  which  were  composed  in,  or 
record  the  histor}'  of,  the  period  ;  the  Greek  historians  Herodotus, 
fragments  of  Ctesias  in  Diodorus  Sic.  etc.,  of  Abj'denus  in  Eusebius, 
Berosus.  B.  Modern  :  Meyer's  and  Duncker's  Histories  of  Antiquity; 
art.  "Ancient  Persia"  in  Encycl.  Brit.,  by  Noldeke  and  Gutschmid  ; 
Sayce,  Anc.  Empires)  the  works  of  Kuenen,  V^n  Hoonacker  and 
Kosters  given  on  p.  192 ;  recent  histories  of  Israel,  e.g.  Stade's, 
Wellhausen's  and  Klostermann's;  P.  Hay  Hunter,  After  the  E.vile,  a 
Hundred  Years  of  Jewish  History  and  Literature,  2  Vols.,  Edin,  1890; 
W.  Fairweather,  From  the  Exile  to  the  Advent,  Edin.  1895.  ^^  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah  see  especially  Ryle's  Commentary  in  the  Cambridge 
Bible  for  Schools,  and  Bertheau-Ryssel's  in  Kursgefasstes  E.xegetisches 
Handbitch:  cf.  also  Charles  C.  Torrey,  The  Composition  and  Historical 
Vahte  of  Ezra-Nehemiah,  in  the  Beihefte  Z7tr  Z.A.T.W.,  II.,  1896. 


ISRAEL   UNDER   THE  PERSIANS  (539-331  b.c.)      189 

of  Israel,  and  the  reasons  for  its  decline  are  obvious. 
To  begin  with,  the  national  life,  from  which  it  springs, 
is  of  a  far  poorer  quality.  Israel  is  no  longer  a  king- 
dom, but  a  colon3^  The  state  is  not  independent : 
there  is  virtually  no  state.  The  community  is  poor 
and  feeble,  cut  off  from  all  the  habit  and  prestige  of 
their  past,  and  beginning  the  rudiments  of  life  again 
in  hard  struggle  with  nature  and  hostile  tribes.  To 
this  level  Prophecy  has  to  descend,  and  occupy  itself 
with  these  rudiments.  We  miss  the  civic  atmosphere, 
the  great  spaces  of  public  life,  the  large  ethical  issues. 
Instead  we  have  tearful  questions,  raised  by  a  grudging 
soil  and  bad  seasons,  with  all  the  petty  selfishness  of 
hunger-bitten  peasants.  The  religious  duties  of  the 
colony  are  mainly  ecclesiastical  :  the  building  of  a 
temple,  the  arrangement  of  ritual,  and  the  ceremonial 
discipline  of  the  people  in  separation  from  their  heathen 
neighbours.  We  miss,  too,  the  clear  outlook  of  the 
earher  prophets  upon  the  history  of  the  world,  and 
their  calm,  rational  grasp  of  its  forces.  The  world  is 
still  seen,  and  even  to  further  distances  than  before. 
The  people  abate  no  whit  of  their  ideal  to  be  the 
teachers  of  mankind.  But  it  is  all  through  another 
medium.  The  lurid  air  of  Apocal3^pse  envelops  the 
future,  and  in  their  weakness  to  grapple  either  poli- 
tically or  philosophically  with  the  problems  which 
history  offers,  the  prophets  resort  to  the  expectation 
of  physical  catastrophes  and  of  the  intervention  of 
supernatural  armies.  Such  an  atmosphere  is  not 
the  native  air  of  Prophecy,  and  Prophecy  yields  its 
supreme  office  in  Israel  to  other  forms  of  religious 
development.  On  one  side  the  ecclesiastic  comes  to 
the  front — the  legalist,  the  organiser  of  ritual,  the 
priest ;  on  another,  the  tfe'ather,  the  moralist,  the  thinker 


190 


THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 


and  the  speculator.  At  the  same  time  personal  religion 
is  perhaps  more  deeply  cultivated  than  at  any  other 
stage  of  the  people's  history.  A  large  number  of 
lyrical  pieces  bear  proof  to  the  existence  of  a  very 
genuine  and  beautiful  piety  throughout  the  period. 


Unfortunately  the  Jewish  records  for  this  time  are 
both  fragmentary  and  confused  ;  they  touch  the  general 
history  of  the  world  only  at  intervals,  and  give  riss  to 
a  number  of  difficult  questions,  some  of  which  are  in- 
soluble. The  clearest  and  only  consecutive  line  of 
data  through  the  period  is  the  list  of  the  Persian 
monarchs.  The  Persian  Empire,  539 — 331,  was  sus- 
tained through  eleven  reigns  and  two  usurpations,  of 
which  the  following  is  a  chronological  table  : — 


Cyrus  (Kurush)  the  Great 
Cambyses  (Kambujiya)  . 

Pseudo-Smerdis,  or  Baradis 
Darius  (Darayahush)  I.,  Hystaspis 
Xerxes  (Kshayarsha)  I.  . 
Artaxerxes  (Artakshathra)  I.,  Longimanus 
Xerxes  II 

Sogdianus       .         . 
Darius  II.,  Nothus .... 
Artaxerxes  II.,  Mnemon 
Artaxerxes  III.,  Ochus  . 

Arses 

Darius  III.,  Codomanus . 


539-529 
529 — 522 

522 

521—485 
485—464 
464—424 
424—423 

423 

423—404 

404—358 

358-338 

338—335 

335—331 


Of  these  royal  names,  Cyrus,  Darius,  Xerxes  (Ahas- 
uerus)  and  Artaxerxes  are  given  among  the  Biblical 
data;  but  the  fact  that  there  are  three  Darius',  two 
XferxfeB*  and  thrfee  Artaxerxes'  makes  possible  more 


ISRAEL   UNDER   THE  PERSIANS  (539-313  b.c)      191 

than  one  set  of  identifications,  and  has  suggested 
different  chronological  schemes  of  Jewish  history 
during  this  period.  The  simplest  and  most  generally 
accepted  identification  of  the  Darius,  Xerxes  (Ahas- 
uerus)  and  Artaxerxes  of  the  Biblical  history,^  is 
that  they  were  the  first  Persian  monarchs  of  these 
names;  and  after  needful  rearrangement  of  the  some- 
what confused  order  of  events  in  the  narrative  of  the 
Book  of  Ezra,  it  was  held  as  settled  that,  while  the 
exiles  returned  under  Cyrus  about  537,  Haggai  and 
Zechariah  prophesied  and  the  Temple  was  built  under 
Darius  I.  between  the  second  and  the  sixth  year  of  his 
reign,  or  from  520  to  516 ;  that  attempts  were  made  to 
build  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  under  Xerxes  I.  (485 — 464), 
but  especially  under  Artaxerxes  I.  (464 — 424),  under 
whom  first  Ezra  in  458  and  then  Nehemiah  in  445 
arrived  at  Jerusalem,  promulgated  the  Law  and  re- 
organised Israel. 

But  this  has  by  no  means  satisfied  all  modern 
critics.  Some  in  the  interests  of  the  authenticity 
and  correct  order  of  the  Book  of  Ezra,  and  some  for 
other  reasons,  argue  that  the  Darius  under  whom  the 
Temple  was  built  was  Darius  II.,  or  Nothus,  423 — 404, 
and  thus  bring  down  the  building  of  the  Temple  and 
the  prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah  a  whole  century 
later  than  the  accepted  theory ;  ^  and  that  therefore 
the  Artaxerxes,  under  whom  Ezra  and  Nehemiah 
laboured,  was  not  the  first  Artaxerxes,  or  Longimanus 


'  Ezra  iv.  5-7,  etc.,  vi.  1-14,  etc. 

2  Havet,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  XCIV.  799  ff.  (art.  La  Modeniite 
des  Prophetes) ;  Imbert  (in  defence  of  the  historical  character  of  the  y^ 
Book  of  Ezra),  Le  Temple  Reconstruit par  Zorobabel^  extrait  du  Musebn, 
1888^  (this  I  have  not  sefen) ;  Sir  Henry  H&Vorlh  in  the  Atctddmy 
fo'r  18^— ^fe  eifjlfetially  ^.  32I5  ff. 


192  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

(464 — 424),  but  the  second,  or  Mnemon  (404 — 358).^ 
This  arrangement  of  the  history  finds  some  support 
in  the  data,  and  especially  in  the  order  of  the  data, 
furnished  by  the  Book  of  Ezra,  which  describes  the 
building  of  the  Temple  under  Darius  after  its  record  of 
events  under  Xerxes  I.  (Ahasuerus)  and  Artaxerxes  I.^ 
But,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  the  Compiler 
of  the  Book  of  Ezra  has  seen  fit,  for  some  reason,  to 
violate  the  chronological  order  of  the  data  at  his  dis- 
posal, and  nothing  reliable  can  be  built  upon  his 
arrangement.  Unravel  his  somewhat  confused  history, 
take  the  contemporary  data  supplied  in  Haggai  and 
Zechariah,  add  to  them  the  historical  probabilities  of 
the  time,  and  you  will  find,  as  the  three  Dutch  scholars 
Kuenen,  Van  Hoonacker  and  Kosters  have  done,^  that 
the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  cannot  possibly  be  dated 
so  late  as  the  reign  of  the  second  Darius  (423 — 404), 
but  must  be  left,  according  to  the  usual  acceptation, 
under  Darius  I.  (521 — 485).  Haggai,  for  instance, 
plainly  implies  that  among  those  who  saw  the  Temple 
rising  were  men  who  had  seen  its  predecessor 
destro3^ed  in  586,''  and  Zechariah  declares  that  God's 
wrath  on  Jerusalem  has  just  lasted  seventy  years.^ 
Nor  (however  much  his  confusion  may  give  grounds 
to  the  contrary)  can  the  Compiler  of  the  Book  of  Ezra 

*  Another  French  writer,  Bellang^,  in  the  Museon  for  1890,  quoted 
by  Kuenen  (^Ges.  Abhandl,  p.  213),  goes  further,  and  places  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  under  the  ^A?Vrf  Artaxerxes,  Ochus  (358 — 33S). 

-  Ezra  iv.  6 — v. 

^  Kuenen,  De  Chronoiogie  van  het  Po'zische  Tijdvak  der  Joodsche 
Gcschicdenis,  1890,  translated  by  Budde  in  Kuenen's  Gesammelte 
AbhandlimgcH,  pp.  212  ff.;  Van  Hoonacker,  Zorobabcl  ct  le  Second 
Temple  (1892);  Kosters,  Het  Herstcl  van  Israel,  in  Het  Perzische 
Tijdvak,  1894,  translated  by  Basedow,  Die  WicderherstdHimg  Israels 
im  Persischen  Zeitaltdr,  1896. 

♦  Hag.  ii.  3.  5  2eth.  i.  12. 


ISRAEL   UNDER   THE  PERSIANS  (539-331  b.c.)      193 

have  meant  any  other  reign  for  the  building  of  the 
Temple  than  that  of  Darius  I.  He  mentions  that 
nothing  was  done  to  the  Temple  all  the  days  of 
Cyrus  and  up  to  the  reign  of  Darius :  ^  by  this  he  can- 
not intend  to  pass  over  the  first  Darius  and  leap  on 
three  more  reigns,  or  a  century,  to  Darius  II.  He 
mentions  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua  both  as  at  the  head 
of  the  exiles  who  returned  under  Cyrus,  and  as  pre- 
siding at  the  building  of  the  Temple  under  Darius.^ 
If  alive  in  536,  they  may  well  have  been  alive  in 
521,  but  cannot  have  survived  till  423.^  These  data 
are  fully  supported  by  the  historical  probabilities.  It 
is  inconceivable  that  the  Jews  should  have  delayed 
the  building  of  the  Temple  for  more  than  a  century 
from  the  time  of  Cyrus.  That  the  Temple  was  built 
by  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua  in  the  beginning  of  the 
reign  of  Darius  I.  may  be  considered  as  one  of  the 
unquestionable  data  of  our  period. 

But  if  this  be  so,  then  there  falls  away  a  great  part 
of  the  argument  for  placing  the  building  of  the  walls 
of  Jerusalem  and  the  labours  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah 
under  Artaxerxes  II.  (404 — 358)  instead  of  Arta- 
xerxes  I.  It  is  true  that  some  who  accept  the  build- 
ing of  the  Temple  under  Darius  I.  nevertheless  put 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah  under  Artaxerxes  II.  The  weak- 
ness of  their  case,  however,  has  been  clearly  exposed 
by  Kuenen,*  who  proves    that    Nehemiah's  mission  to 

*  Ezra  iv.  5.  -  Ezra  ii.  2,  iv.  I  ff.,  v.  2. 

'  As  Kuenen  shows,  p.  226,  nothing  can  be  deduced  from  Ezra 
vi.  14. 

■*  P.  227 ;  in  answer  to  De  Saulcy,  Etude  Chronologique  des  Livres 
d'Esdras  et  de  Nehemie  (1868),  Sept  Sikles  de  VHistoire  Juda'ique 
(1874).  De  Saulcy's  case  rests  on  the  account  of  Josephus  (XI. 
Ant.  vii.  2-8  :  cf,  ix.  i),  the  untrustworthy  character  of  which  and  its 
confusion  of  two  distant  eras  Kuenen  has  no  difificulty  in  showing. 
VOL.  II.  13 


194  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Jerusalem  must  have  fallen  in  the  twentieth  year  of 
Artaxerxes  I.,  or  445.^  ''On  this  fact  there  can  be  no 
further  difference  of  opinion."  ^ 

These  two  dates  then  are  fixed  :  the  beginning  of 
the  Temple  in  520  by  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua,  and  the 
arrival  of  Nehemiah  at  Jerusalem  in  445.  Other  points 
are  more  difficult  to  establish,  and  in  particular  there 
rests  a  great  obscurity  on  the  date  of  the  two  visits  of 
Ezra  to  Jerusalem.  According  to  the  Book  of  Ezra,^ 
he  went  there  first  in  the  seventh  year  of  Artaxerxes  I., 
or  458  B.C.,  thirteen  years  before  the  arrival  of  Nehemiah. 
He  found  many  Jews  married  to  heathen  wives,  laid  it 
to  heart,  and  called  a  general  assembly  of  the  people 
to  drive  the  latter  out  of  the  community.  Then  we 
hear  no  more  of  him :  neither  in  the  negotiations  with 
Artaxerxes  about  the  building  of  the  walls,  nor  upon 
the  arrival  of  Nehemiah,  nor  in  Nehemiah's  treatment 
of  the  mixed  marriages.  He  is  absent  from  everything, 
till  suddenly  he  appears  again  at  the  dedication  of  the 
walls  by  Nehemiah  and  at  the  reading  of  the  Law.* 
This  *'  eclipse  of  Ezra,"  as  Kuenen  well  calls  it,  taken 
with  the  mixed  character  of  all  the  records  left  of  him, 
lias  moved  some  to  deny  to  him  and  his  reforms  and 
his   promulgation    of  the    Law    any    historical    reahty 


*  When  Nehemiah  came  to  Jerusalem  Eliyashib  was  high  priest, 
and  he  was  grandson  of  Jeshua,  who  was  high  priest  in  520,  or 
seven tj'-five  years  before  ;  but  between  520  and  the  twentieth  year  of 
Artaxerxes  II.  lie  one  hundred  and  thirty-six  years.  And  again,  the 
Artaxerxes  of  Ezra  iv.  8-23,  under  whom  the  walls  of  Jerusalem 
were  begun,  was  the  immediate  follower  of  Xerxes  (Ahasuerus),  and 
therefore  Artaxerxes  I.,  and  Van  Hoonacker  has  shown  that  he  must 
be  the  same  as  the  Artaxerxes  of  Nehemiah. 

^  Kosters,  p.  43. 
'  vii.  1-8. 

*  Neh.  xii.  '?6,  viii  ,  x. 


ISRAEL   UNDER   THE  PERSIANS  (539-331  b.c.)      195 

whatever ;  ^  while  others,  with  a  more  sober  and  rational 
criticism,  have  sought  to  solve  the  difficulties  by  another 
arrangement  of  the  events  than  that  usually  accepted. 
Van  Hoonacker  makes  Ezra's  first  appearance  in 
Jerusalem  to  be  at  the  dedication  of  the  walls  and 
promulgation  of  the  Law  in  445,  and  refers  his 
arrival  described  in  Ezra  vii.  and  his  attempts  to 
abolish  the  mixed  marriages  to  a  second  visit  to 
Jerusalem  in  the  twentieth  year,  not  of  Artaxerxes  I., 
but  of  Artaxerxes  II.,  or  398  b.c.  Kuenen  has  exposed 
the  extreme  unlikelihood,  if  not  impossibility,  of  so  late 
a  date  for  Ezra,  and  in  this  Kosters  holds  with  him.^ 
But  Kosters  agrees  with  Van  Hoonacker  in  placing 
Ezra's  activity  subsequent  to  Nehemiah's  and  to  the 
dedication  of  the  walls. 

These  questions  about  Ezra  have  little  bearing  on 
our  present  study  of  the  prophets,  and  it  is  not  our 
duty  to  discuss  them.  But  Kuenen,  in  answer  to  Van 
Hoonacker,  has  shown  very  strong  reasons  ^  for  holding 
in  the  main  to  the  generally  accepted  theory  of  Ezra's 
arrival  in  Jerusalem  in  458,  the  seventh  year  of 
Artaxerxes  I. ;  and  though  there  are  great  difficulties 
about  the  narrative  which  follows,  and  especially 
about  Ezra's  sudden  disappearance  from  the  scene  till 
after  Nehemiah's  arrival,  reasons  may  be  found  for 
this.* 

*  Vernes,  Precis  d'Histoirc  Jiiive  dcpiiis  les  Origines  j'usqu^a 
I'Epoque  Persane  (1889),  pp.  579  ff.  (not  seen)  ;  more  recently  also 
Charles  C.  Torrey  of  Andover,  The  Composition  and  Historical  Valne 
of  Ezra-Nehemiah,  in  the  Beihefte  znr  Z.A.T.W.,  II.,  1896. 

2  Pages  ii3ff.  3  Page  237. 

*  The  failure  of  his  too  hasty  and  impetuous  attempts  at  so  whole- 
sale a  measure  as  the  banishment  of  the  heathen  wives  ;  or  his  return 
to  Babylon,  having  accomplished  his  end.  See  Ryle,  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah,  in  the  Cambridge  Bible  for  Schools^  Introd.,  pp.  xl.  f. 


196  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

We  are  therefore  justified  in  holding,  in  the  meantime, 
to  the  traditional  arrangement  of  the  great  events  in 
Israel  in  the  fifth  century  before  Christ.  We  may 
divide  the  whole  Persian  period  by  the  tv^o  points  v^e 
have  found  to  be  certain,  the  beginning  of  the  Temple 
under  Darius  I.  in  520  and  the  mission  of  Nehemiah 
to  Jerusalem  in  445,  and  by  the  other  that  we  have 
found  to  be  probable,  Ezra's  arrival  in  458. 

On  these  data  the  Persian  period  may  be  arranged 
under  the  following  four  sections,  among  which  we  place 
those  prophets  who  respectively  belong  to  them  : — 

1.  From  the  Taking  of  Babylon  by  Cyrus  to  the 
Completion  of  the  Temple  in  the  sixth  year  of  Darius  I., 
538 — 516  :  Haggai  and  Zechariah  in  520  flf. 

2.  From  the  Completion  of  the  Temple  under 
Darius  I.  to  the  arrival  of  Ezra  in  the  seventh  year 
of  Artaxerxes  I.,  516 — 458:  sometimes  called  the 
period  of  silence,  but  probably  yielding  the  Book  of 
"  Malachi." 

3.  The  Work  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  under  Arta- 
xerxes I.,  Longimanus,  458—425. 

4.  The  Rest  of  the  Period,  Xerxes  II.  to  Darius  III., 
425 — 331  :  the  prophet  Joel  and  perhaps  several  other 
anonymous  fragments  of  prophecy. 

Of  these  four  sections  we  must  now  examine 
the  first,  for  it  forms  the  necessary  introduction  to 
our  study  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  and  above  all 
it  raises  a  question  almost  greater  than  any  of  those 
we  have  just  been  discussing.  The  fact  recorded  by 
the  Book  of  Ezra,  and  till  a  few  years  ago  accepted 
without  doubt  by  tradition  and  modern  criticism,  the 
first  Return  of  Exiles  from  Babylon  under  Cyrus,  has 
lately  been  altogether  denied ;  and  the  builders  of  the 


ISRAEL   UNDER   THE  PERSIANS  (539-331  b.c.)      19^ 

Temple  in  520  have  been  asserted  to  be,  not  returned 
exiles,  but  the  remnant  of  Jews  left  in  Judah  by 
Nebuchadrezzar  in  586.  The  importance  of  this  for 
our  interpretation  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  who 
instigated  the  building  of  the  Temple,  is  obvious :  we 
must  discuss  the  question  in  detail. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

FROM   THE  RETURN  FROM  BABYLON  TO   THE 

BUILDING   OF  THE   TEMPLE 

(536-516  BC.) 

CYRUS  the  Great  took  Babylon  and  the  Babylonian 
Empire  in  539.  Upon  the  eve  of  his  conquest 
the  Second  Isaiah  had  hailed  him  as  the  Liberator 
of  the  people  of  God  and  the  builder  of  their  Temple. 
The  Return  of  the  Exiles  and  the  Restoration  both 
of  Temple  and  City  were  predicted  by  the  Second 
Isaiah  for  the  immediate  future  ;  and  a  Jewish  historian, 
the  Compiler  of  the  Books  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  who 
lived  about  300  b.c,  has  taken  up  the  story  of  how 
these  events  came  to  pass  from  the  very  first  year  of 
Cyrus  onward.  Before  discussing  the  dates  and  proper 
order  of  these  events,  it  will  be  well  to  have  this 
Chronicler's  narrative  before  us.  It  lies  in  the  first 
and  following  chapters  of  our  Book  of  Ezra. 

According  to  this,  Cyrus,  soon  after  his  conquest 
of  Babylon,  gave  permission  to  the  Jewish  exiles  to 
return  to  Palestine,  and  between  forty  and  fifty  thou- 
sand^ did  so  return,  bearing  the  vessels  of  Jehovah's 
house  which   the  Chaldeans  had   taken  away  in   586. 

^  42,360,  besides  their  servants,  is  the  total  sum  given  in  Ezra  ii.  64; 
but  the  detailed  figures  in  Ezra  amount  only  to  29,818,  those  in 
Nehemiah  to  31,089,  and  those  in  i  Esdras  to  30,143  (other  MSS, 
30,678).     See  Ryle  on  Ezra  ii.  64. 

198 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE        199 

These  Cyrus  delivered  to  Sheshbazzar^  prince  of  Judah^ 
(who  is  further  described  in  an  Aramaic  document 
incorporated  by  the  Compiler  of  the  Book  of  Ezra 
as  "Pehah,"  or  provincial governor^^  and  as  laying  the 
foundation  of  the  Temple  ^),  and  there  is  also  mentioned 
in  command  of  the  people  a  Tirshatha,  probably  the 
Persian  Tarsata/  which  also  means  provincial  governor. 
Upon  their  arrival  at  Jerusalem,  the  date  of  which 
will  be  immediately  discussed,  the  people  are  said  to 
be  under  Jeshu'a  ben  Josadak  ^  and  Zerubbabel  ben 
She'alti'el/  who  had  already  been  mentioned  as  the 
head  of  the  returning  exiles,''  and  who  is  called  by 
his  contemporary  Haggai  Pehah,  or  governor,  of 
Jiidah}  Are  we  to  understand  by  Sheshbazzar  and 
Zerubbabel  one  and  the  same  person  ?  Most  critics 
have  answered  in  the  affirmative,  believing  that  Shesh- 
bazzar is  but  the  Babylonian  or  Persian  name  by 
which  the  Jew  Zerubbabel  was  known  at  court ;  ^  and 
this  view  is  supported  by  the  facts  that  Zerubbabel  was 
of  the  house  of  David  and  is  called  Pehah  by  Haggai, 
and  by  the  argument  that  the  command  given  by 
the  Tirshatha  to  the  Jews  to  abstain  from  eating  the 
most  holy  things'^^  could  only  have   been  given  by  a 


1  Ezra  i.  8.  ^  lb.  16. 

2  Ezra  V.  14.  *  Ezra  ii.  63. 

5  P'ly'l^"!!  ^■''^••:  ^^^^  ^"-  2'  ^^^^  ^^'■^  ^'  ^"^'  ^^°"^  ^^^^  Compiler 
of  Ezra-Nehemiah. 

'  Ezra  ii.  2. 

^  Hag.  i.  14,  ii.  2,  21,  and  perhaps  by  Nehemiah  (vii.  65-70). 
Nehemiah  himself  is  styled  both  Pehah  (xiv.  20)  and  Tirshatha 
(viii.  9,  X.  i). 

"  As  Daniel  and  his  three  friends  had  also  Babylonian  names. 

1"  Ezra  ii.  63. 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


native  Jew.^  But  others,  arguing  that  Ezra  v.  I,  com- 
pared with  vv.  14  and  16,  implies  that  Zerubbabel 
and  Sheshbazzar  were  two  different  persons,  take 
the  former  to  have  been  the  most  prominent  of  the 
Jews  themselves,  but  the  latter  an  official,  Persian  or 
Babylonian,  appointed  by  Cyrus  to  carry  out  such 
business  in  connection  with  the  Return  as  could  only 
be  discharged  by  an  imperial  officer.^  This  is,  on  the 
whole,  the  more  probable  theory. 

If  it  is  right,  Sheshbazzar,  who  superintended  the 
Return,  had  disappeared  from  Jerusalem  by  521,  when 
Haggai  commenced  to  prophesy,  and  had  been  succeeded 
as  Pehah,  or  governor,  by  Zerubbabel.  But  in  that  case 
the  Compiler  has  been  in  error  in  calling  Sheshbazzar 
a  prince  of  Judah? 

The  next  point  to  fix  is  what  the  Compiler  considers 
to  have  been  the  date  of  the  Return.  He  names  no 
year,  but  he  recounts  that  the  same  people,  whom  he 
has  just  described  as  receiving  the  command  of  Cyrus 
to  return,  did  immediately  leave  Babylon,*  and  he  says 
that  they  arrived  at  Jerusalem  in  the  seventh  months 
but  again  without   stating  a   year.^      In  any  case,  he 

'  Cf.  Ryle,  xxxi  ff. ;  and  on  Ezra  i.  8,  ii.  63. 

^  Stade,  Gesch.  des  Volkes  Israel,  II.  98 ff.:  cf.  Kuenen,  GesmnmelU 
Abha7idl.,  220. 

3  Ezra  i.  8. 

*  Ezra  i,  compared  with  ii.  i. 

^  Some  think  to  find  this  in  I  Esdras  v.  1-6,  where  it  is  said  that 
Darius,  a  name  they  take  to  be  an  error  for  that  of  Cyrus,  brought 
up  the  exiles  with  an  escort  of  a  thousand  cavalry,  starting  in  the  first 
month  of  the  second  year  of  the  king's  reign.  This  passage,  how- 
ever, is  not  beyond  suspicion  as  a  gloss  (see  Ryle  on  Ezra  i.  11),  and 
even  if  genuine  may  be  intended  to  describe  a  second  contingent  of 
exiles  despatched  by  Darius  I.  in  his  second  year,  520.  The  names 
given  include  that  of  Jesua,  son  of  Josedec,  and  instead  of  Zerub- 
babel's,  that  of  his  son  Joacim. 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE        20 1 

obviously  intends  to  imply  that  the  Return  followed 
immediately  on  reception  of  the  permission  to  return, 
and  that  this  was  given  by  Cyrus  very  soon  after  his 
occupation  of  Babylon  in  539-8.  We  may  take  it  that 
the  Compiler  understood  the  year  to  be  that  we  know 
as  537  B.C.  He  adds  that,  on  the  arrival  of  the 
caravans  from  Babylon,  the  Jews  set  up  the  altar  on 
its  old  site  and  restored  the  morning  and  evening 
sacrifices ;  that  they  kept  also  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles, 
and  thereafter  all  the  rest  of  the  feasts  of  Jehovah ;  and 
further,  that  they  engaged  masons  and  carpenters  for 
building  the  Temple,  and  Phoenicians  to  bring  them 
cedar-wood  from  Lebanon.^ 

Another  section  from  the  Compiler's  hand  states  that 
the  returned  Jews  set  to  work  upon  the  Temple  m  the 
second  month  of  the  second  year  of  their  Return,  pre- 
sumably 536  B.C.,  laying  the  foundation-stone  with  due 
pomp,  and  amid  the  excitement  of  the  whole  people.^ 
Whereupon  certain  adversaries^  by  whom  the  Compiler 
means  Samaritans,  demanded  a  share  in  the  building  of 
the  Temple,  and  when  Jeshua  and  Zerubbabel  refused 
this,  the  people  of  the  land  frustrated  the  building  of  the 
Temple  even  until  the  reign  of  Darius,  5  2 1  ff. 

This — the  second  year  of  Darius — is  the  point  to 
which  contemporary  documents,  the  prophecies  of 
Haggai  and  Zechariah,  assign  the  beginning  of 
new  measures  to  build  the  Temple.  Of  these  the 
Compiler  of  the  Book  of  Ezra  says  in  the  mean- 
time nothing,  but  after  barely  mentioning  the  reign 
of  Darius  leaps  at  once^  to  further  Samaritan 
obstructions — though  not  of  the  building  of  the 
Temple  (be  it  noted),  but  of  the  building  of  the  city 

1  Ezra  iii.  3-7.  ^  /^^  g.j^.  s  Ezra  iv.  7. 


THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 


walls — in  the  reigns  of  Ahasuerus,  that  is  Xerxes, 
presumably  Xerxes  I.,  the  successor  of  Darius,  485 — 
464,  and  of  his  successor  Artaxerxes  I.,  464 — 424 ;  ^  the 
account  of  the  latter  of  which  he  gives  not  in  his  own 
language  but  in  that  of  an  Aramaic  document,  Ezra  iv.  8  ff. 
And  this  document,  after  recounting  how  Artaxerxes 
empowered  the  Samaritans  to  stop  the  building  of  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem,  records  ^  that  the  building  ceased 
till  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  Darius^  when  the 
prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah  stirred  up  Zerubbabel 
and  Jeshua  to  rebuild,  not  the  city  walls,  be  it  observed, 
but  the  Temple,  and  with  the  permission  of  Darius 
this  building  was  at  last  completed  in  his  sixth  year.^ 
That  is  to  say,  this  Aramaic  document  brings  us  back, 
with  the  frustrated  building  of  the  walls  under  Xerxes  I. 
and  Artaxerxes  I.  (485 — 424),  to  the  same  date  under 
their  predecessor  Darius  I.,  viz.  520,  to  which  the 
Compiler  had  brought  down  the  frustrated  building  of 
the  Temple !  The  most  reasonable  explanation  of  this 
confusion,  not  only  of  chronology,  but  of  two  distinct 
processes — the  erection  of  the  Temple  and  the  forti- 
fication of  the  city — is  that  the  Compiler  was  misled  by 
his  desire  to  give  as  strong  an  impression  as  possible 
of  the  Samaritan  obstructions  by  placing  them  all 
together.  Attempts  to  harmonise  the  order  of  his 
narrative  with  the  ascertained  sequence  of  the  Persian 
reigns  have  failed.'^ 

'  See  above,  p.  193. 

^  iv.  24. 

^  Ezra  iv.  24 — vi.  15. 

*  There  are  in  the  main  two  classes  of  such  attempts,  {a)  Some 
have  suggested  that  the  Ahasuerus  (Xerxes)  and  Artaxerxes  men- 
tioned in  Ezra  iv.  6  and  7  ff.  are  not  the  successors  of  Darius  I.  who 
bore  these  names,  but  titles  of  his  predecessors  Cambyses  and  the 
Pseudo-Smerdis  (see  above,  p.  190).     This  view  has  been  disposed  of 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING   OF  TEMPLE        203 

Such  then  is  the  character  of  the  compilation  known 
to  us  as  the  Book  of  Ezra.  If  we  add  that  in  its 
present  form  it  cannot  be  of  earHer  date  than  300  B.C., 
or  two  hundred  and  thirty-six  years  after  the  Return, 
and  that  the  Aramaic  document  which  it  incorporates 
is  probably  not  earHer  than  430,  or  one  hundred  years 
after  the  Return,  while  the  List  of  Exiles  which  it 
gives  (in  chap,  ii.)  also  contains  elements  that  cannot 
be  earlier  than  430,  we  shall  not  wonder  that  grave 
doubts  should  have  been  raised  concerning  its  trust- 
worthiness as  a  narrative. 

These  doubts  affect,  with  one  exception,  all  the  great 
facts  which  it  professes  to  record.  The  exception  is 
the  building  of  the  Temple  between  the  second  and 
sixth  years  of  Darius  I.,  520 — 516,  which  we  have 
already  seen  to  be  past  doubt.^  But  all  that  the 
Book  of  Ezra  relates  before  this  has  been  called  in 
question,  and  it  has  been  successively  alleged  :  (i) 
that  there  was  no  such  attempt  as  the  book  describes 
to  build  the  Temple  before  520,  (2)  that  there  was 
no  Return  of  Exiles  at  all  under  Cyrus,  and  that 
the  Temple  was  not  built  by  Jews  who  had  come  from 
Babylon,  but  by  Jews  who  had  never  left  Judah. 

These  conclusions,  if  justified,  would  have  the  most 
important  bearing  upon  our  interpretation  of  Haggai 
and  Zechariah.  It  is  therefore  necessary  to  examine 
them  with  care.  They  were  reached  by  critics  in  the 
order    just    stated,    but   as    the   second    is   the   more 

by  Kuenen,  Ges.  Abhandl,  pp.  224  ff.,  and  by  Ryle,  pp.  65  flf.  {b)  The 
attempt  to  prove  that  the  Darius  under  whom  the  Temple  was 
built  was  not  Darius  I.  (521 — 485),  the  predecessor  of  Xerxes  I.  and 
Artaxerxes  I.  (485 — 424),  but  their  successor  once  removed,  Darius  II., 
Nothus  (423—404).  So,  in  defence  of  the  Book  of  Ezra,  Imbert. 
For  his  theory  and  the  answer  to  it  see  above,  pp.  1 91  f. 
^  See  above,  pp.  192  ff. 


204  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

sweeping  and  to  some  extent  involves  the  other,  we 
may  take  it  first. 

I.  Is  the  Book  of  Ezra,  then,  right  or  wrong  in 
asserting  that  there  was  a  great  return  of  Jews,  headed 
by  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua,  about  the  year  536,  and  that 
it  was  they  who  in  520 — 516  rebuilt  the  Temple  ? 

The  argument  that  in  recounting  these  events  the 
Book  of  Ezra  is  unhistorical  has  been  fully  stated  by 
Professor  Kosters  of  Leiden.^  He  reaches  his  conclu- 
sion along  three  lines  of  evidence  :  the  Books  of  Haggai 
and  Zechariah,  the  sources  from  which  he  believes  the 
Aramaic  narrative  Ezra  v.  I — vi.  18  to  have  been 
compiled,  and  the  list  of  names  in  Ezra  ii.  In  the 
Books  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  he  points  out  that 
the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  whom  the  prophets  sum- 
mon to  build  the  Temple  are  not  called  by  any  name 
which  implies  that  they  are  returned  exiles;  that  nothing 
in  the  description  of  them  would  lead  us  to  suppose 
this ;  that  God's  anger  against  Israel  is  represented  as 
still  unbroken;  that  neither  prophet  speaks  of  a  Return 
as  past,  but  that  Zechariah  seems  to  look  for  it  as  still 
to  come.^  The  second  line  of  evidence  is  an  analysis 
of  the  Aramaic  document,  Ezra  v.  6  ff.,  into  two 
sources,  neither  of  which  imphes  a  Return  under  Cyrus. 
But  these  two  lines  of  proof  cannot  avail  against  the 
List   of  Returned   Exiles  offered   us  in   Ezra   ii.  and 

1  For  his  work  see  above,  p.  192,  n.  3.  I  regret  that  neither  Well- 
hausen's  answer  to  it,  nor  Kosters'  reply  to  Wellhausen,  was 
accessible  to  me  in  preparing  this  chapter.  Nor  did  I  read  Mr. 
Torrey's  resume  of  Wellhausen's  answer,  or  Wellhausen's  notes  to 
the  second  edition  of  his  Isr.  u,  Jud.  Geschichte,  till  the  chapter  was 
written.  Previous  to  Kosters,  the  Return  under  Cyrus  had  been 
called  in  question  only  by  the  very  arbitrary  French  scholar 
M.  Vernes  in  1889-90. 

2  ii.  6  ff.  Eng.,  10  fF.  Heb. 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE        205 

Nehemiah  vii,,  if  the  latter  be  genuine.  On  his  third 
line  of  evidence,  Dr.  Kosters,  therefore,  disputes  the 
genuineness  of  this  List,  and  further  denies  that  it 
even  gives  itself  out  as  a  List  of  Exiles  returned  under 
Cyrus.  So  he  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  there  v^ras 
no  Return  from  Babylon  under  Cyrus,  nor  any  before 
the  Temple  was  built  in  520  ff.,  but  that  the  builders 
were  people  of  the  land,  Jews  who  had  never  gone 
into  exile. 

The  evidence  which  Dr.  Kosters  draws  from  the 
Book  of  Ezra  least  concerns  us.  Both  because  of  this 
and  because  it  is  the  weakest  part  of  his  case,  we  may 
take  it  first. 

Dr.  Kosters  analyses  the  bulk  of  the  Aramaic  document, 
Ezra  v. — vi.  18,  into  two  constituents.  His  arguments 
for  this  are  very  precarious.^  The  first  document, 
which  he  takes  to  consist  of  chap.  v.  1-5  and  10,  with 
perhaps  vi.  6-15  (except  a  few  phrases),  relates  that 
Thathnai,  Satrap  of  the  West  of  the  Euphrates,  asked 
Darius  whether  he  might  allow  the  Jews  to  proceed 
with  the  building  of  the  Temple,  and  received  command 
not  only  to  allow  but  to  help  them,  on  the  ground 
that  Cyrus  had  already  given  them  permission.  The 
second,  chap.  v.  11- 17,  vi.  1-3,  affirms  that  the  building 

*  His  chief  grounds  for  this  analysis  are  (i)  that  in  v.  1-5  the  Jews 
are  said  to  have  begun  to  build  the  Temple  in  the  second  year  of 
Darius,  while  in  v.  16  the  foundation-stone  is  said  to  have  been  laid 
under  Cyrus;  (2)  the  frequent  want  of  connection  throughout  the 
passage;  (3)  an  alleged  doublet:  in  v.  17 — vi.  i  search  is  said  to 
have  been  made  for  the  edict  of  Cyrus  in  Babylon,  while  in  vi.  2  the 
edict  is  said  to  have  been  found  in  Ecbatana.  But  (i)  and  (3)  are 
capable  of  very  obvious  explanations,  and  (2)  is  far  from  conclusive. — 
The  remainder  of  the  Aramaic  text,  iv.  8-24,  Kosters  seeks  to  prove  is 
by  the  Chronicler  or  Compiler  himself.  As  Torrey  (o/>.  cit,,  p.  1 1)  has 
shown,  this  "  is  as  unlikely  as  possible."  At  the  most  he  may  have 
made  additions  to  the  Aramaic  document, 


2o6  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

had  actually  begun  under  Cyrus,  who  had  sent  Shesh- 
bazzar,  the  Satrap,  to  see  it  carried  out.  Neither  of 
these  documents  says  a  word  about  any  order  from 
Cyrus  to  the  Jews  to  return ;  and  the  implication  of  the 
second,  that  the  building  had  gone  on  uninterruptedly 
from  the  time  of  Cyrus'  order  to  the  second  year  of 
Darius,^  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  evidence  of  the 
Compiler  of  the  Book  of  Ezra,  who,  as  we  have  seen,^ 
states  that  Samaritan  obstruction  stayed  the  building 
till  the  second  year  of  Darius. 

But  suppose  we  accept  Kosters'  premisses  and  agree 
that  these  two  documents  really  exist  within  Ezra  v. — 
vi.  1 8.  Their  evidence  is  not  irreconcilable.  Both  imply 
that  Cyrus  gave  command  to  rebuild  the  Temple :  if  they 
were  originally  independent  that  would  but  strengthen 
the  tradition  of  such  a  command,  and  render  a  little 
weaker  Dr.  Kosters'  contention  that  the  tradition  arose 
merely  from  a  desire  to  find  a  fulfilment  of  the  Second 
Isaiah's  predictions  ^  that  Cyrus  would  be  the  Temple's 
builder.  That  neither  of  the  supposed  documents  men- 
tions the   Return  itself  is  very  natural,  because  both 


'  Ezra  V.  1 6. 

2  Above,  pp.  201  f. 

^  Isa.  xliv,  28,  xlv.  I.  According  to  Kosters,  the  statement  of 
the  Aramaic  document  about  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  is  there- 
fore a  pious  invention  of  a  literal  fulfilment  of  prophecy.  To  this 
opinion  Cheyne  adheres  {Introd.  to  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  1S95,  p.  xxxviii), 
and  adds  the  further  assumption  that  the  Chronicler,  being  "  shocked 
at  the  ascription  to  Cyrus  (for  the  Judaean  builders  have  no  credit 
given  them)  of  what  must,  he  thought,  have  been  at  least  equally  due 
to  the  zeal  of  the  exiles,"  invented  his  story  in  the  earlier  chapters 
of  Ezra  as  to  the  part  the  exiles  themselves  took  in  the  rebuilding. 
It  will  be  noticed  that  these  assumptions  have  precisely  the  value 
of  such.  They  are  merely  the  imputation  of  motives,  more  or  less 
probable  to  the  writers  of  certain  statements,  and  may  therefore  be 
fairly  met  by  probabilities  from  the  other  side.  But  of  this  more 
later  on. 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE        207 

are  concerned  with  the  building  of  the  Temple.  For 
the  Compiler  of  the  Book  of  Ezra,  who  on  Kosters' 
argument  put  them  together,  the  interest  of  the  Return 
is  over ;  he  has  already  sufficiently  dealt  with  it.  But 
more — Kosters'  second  document,  which  ascribes  the 
building  of  the  Temple  to  Cyrus,  surely  by  that  very 
statement  implies  a  Return  of  Exiles  during  his  reign. 
For  is  it  at  all  probable  that  Cyrus  would  have  com- 
mitted the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  to  a  Persian 
magnate  like  Sheshbazzar,  without  sending  with  him 
a  large  number  of  those  Babylonian  Jews  who  must 
have  instigated  the  king  to  give  his  order  for  rebuilding  ? 
We  may  conclude  then  that  Ezra  v. — vi.  18,  whatever  be 
its  value  and  its  date,  contains  no  evidence,  positive  or 
negative,  against  a  Return  of  the  Jews  under  Cyrus, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  takes  this  for  granted. 

We  turn  now  to  Dr.  Kosters'  treatment  of  the  so- 
called  List  of  the  Returned  Exiles.  He  holds  this 
List  to  have  been,  not  only  borrowed  for  its  place  in 
Ezra  ii.  from  Nehemiah  vii.,^  but  even  interpolated 
in  the  latter.  His  reasons  for  this  latter  conclusion 
are  very  improbable,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  appended 
note,  and  really  weaken  his  otherwise  strong  case.^ 
As  to  the  contents  of  the  List,  there  are,  it  is  true, 
many  elements  which  date  from  Nehemiah's  own  time 
and  even  later.     But  these  are  not  sufficient  to  prove 

1  This  is  the  usual  opinion  of  critics,  who  yet  hold  it  to  be  genuine 
—e.g.  Ryle. 

2  He  seeks  to  argue  that  a  List  of  Exiles  returned  under  Cyrus  in 
536  could  be  of  no  use  for  Nehemiah's  purpose  to  obtain  in  445  a 
census  of  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem ;  but  surely,  if  in  his  efforts  to 
make  a  census  Nehemiah  discovered  the  existence  of  such  a  List,  it 
was  natural  for  him  to  give  it  as  the  basis  of  his  inquiry,  or  (because 
the  List — see  above,  p.  203— contains  elements  from  Nehemiah's  own 
time)  to  enlarge  it  and  bring  it  down  to  date.     But  Dr.  Kosters  thinks 


2o8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

that  the  List  was  not  originally  a  List  of  Exiles  returned 
under  Cyrus.     The  verses  in  which  this  is  asserted — 
Ezra  ii.  i,  2 ;  Nehemiah  vii.  6,  7 — plainly  intimate  that 
those  Jews  who  came  up  out  of  the  Exile  were  the 
same  who  built  the  Temple  under  Darius.     Dr.  Kosters 
endeavours  to  destroy  the  force  of  this  statement  (if 
true  so  destructive  of  his  theory)  by  pointing  to  the 
number  of  the  leaders  which  the  List  assigns  to  the 
returning   exiles.       In  fixing  this    number   as  twelve, 
the  author,  Kosters   maintains,  intended  to  make  the 
leaders   representative   of  the  twelve   tribes   and    the 
body  of  returned    exiles  as  equivalent    to   All-Israel. 
But,  he  argues,   neither    Haggai   nor   Zechariah   con- 
siders  the   builders   of  the  Temple   to  be  equivalent 
to   All-Israel,   nor   was    this    conception    realised    in 
Judah  till  after  the  arrival  of  Ezra  with   his    bands. 
The  force   of  this  argument  is  greatly  weakened    by 
remembering  how  natural  it  would  have  been  for  men, 
who    felt    the    Return   under   Cyrus,    however   small, 
to   be   the  fulfilment  of  the  Second  Isaiah's   glorious 
predictions  of  a  restoration  of  All-Israel,  to  appoint 
twelve  leaders,  and  so   make   them  representative  of 
the  nation  as  a  whole.     Kosters'  argument  against  the 
naturalness  of  such  an  appointment  in  537,  and  there- 
fore against  the   truth  of  the   statement  of  the   List 
about  it,  falls  to  the  ground. 

But  in  the  Books  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah  Dr.  Kosters 

also  that,  as  Nehemiah  would  never  have  broken  the  connection  of 
his  memoirs  with  such  a  List,  the  latter  must  have  been  inserted  by 
the  Compiler,  who  at  this  point  grew  weary  of  the  discursiveness  of 
the  memoirs,  broke  from  them,  and  then — inserted  this  lengthy  List ! 
This  is  simply  incredible — that  he  should  seek  to  atone  for  the 
diffuseness  of  Nehemiah's  memoirs  by  the  intrusion  of  a  very  long 
catalogue  which  had  no  relevance  to  the  point  at  which  he  broke 
them  off. 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE       209 

finds  much  -more  formidable  witnesses  for  his  thesis 
that  there  was  no  Return  of  exiles  from  Babylon  before 
the  building  of  the  Temple  under  Darius.  These  books 
nowhere  speak  of  a  Return  under  Cyrus,  nor  do  they  call 
the  community  who  built  the  Temple  by  the  names  ot 
Golah  or  B'ne  ha-Golah,  Captivity  or  Sons  of  the  Captivity ^ 
which  are  given  after  the  Return  of  Ezra's  bands ;  but 
they  simply  name  them  this  people  ^  or  remnant  of  the 
people^  people  of  the  land^  Judah  or  House  of  fudahy^ 
names  perfectly  suitable  to  Jews  who  had  never  left 
the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem.  Even  if  we  except 
from  this  list  the  phrase  the  remnant  of  the  people,  as 
intended  by  Haggai  and  Zechariah  in  the  numerical 
sense  of  the  rest  or  all  the  others,^  we  have  still  to  deal 
with  the  other  titles,  with  the  absence  from  them  of  any 
symptom  descriptive  of  return  from  exile,  and  with 
the  whole  silence  of  our  two  prophets  concerning  such 
a  return.  These  are  very  striking  phenomena,  and 
they  undoubtedly  afford  considerable  evidence  for  Dr. 
Kosters'  thesis.^     But  it  cannot  escape  notice  that  the 

1  Hag.  i.  2,  12;  ii.  14. 

^  Hag.  i.  12,  14;  ii.  2;  Zech.  viii.  6,  ii,  12. 

'  Hag.  ii.  4;  Zech.  vii.  5.  *  Zech.  ii.  16;  viii,  13,  15. 

^  It  is  used  in  Hag.  i.  12,  14,  ii.  2,  only  after  the  mention  of  the 
leaders;  see,  however,  Pusey's  note  9  to  Hag.  i,  12;  while  in 
Zech.  viii.  6,  li,  18,  it  might  be  argued  that  it  was  employed  in  such 
a  way  as  to  cover  not  only  Jews  who  had  never  left  their  land,  but 
all  Jews  as  well  who  were  left  of  ancient  Israel. 

^  Compare  Cheyne,  Introduction  to  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  1895,  xxxvff,, 
who  says  that  in  the  main  points  Kosters'  conclusions  "appear  so 
inevitable"  that  he  has  "constantly  presupposed  them"  in  dealing 
with  chaps.  Ivi. — Ixvi.  of  Isaiah ;  and  Torrey,  op.  cit.,  1896,  p.  53 : 
"  Kosters  has  demonstrated,  from  the  testimony  of  Haggai  and 
Zechariah,  that  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua  were  not  returned  exiles; 
and  furthermore,  that  the  prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah  knew 
nothing  of  an  important  return  of  exiles  from  Babylonia."  Cf,  also 
Wildeboer,  Litteratur  des  /i.  T.,  pp.  291  fF 

VOL.  II.  14 


2IO  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

evidence  they  afford  is  mainly  negative,  and  this  raises 
two  questions  :  (i)  Can  the  phenomena  in  Haggai  and 
Zechariah  be  accounted  for  ?  and  (2)  whether  accounted 
for  or  not,  can  they  be  held  to  prevail  against  the 
mass  of  positive  evidence  in  favour  of  a  Return  under 
Cyrus  ? 

An  explanation  of  the  absence  of  all  allusion  in 
Haggai  and  Zechariah  to  the  Return  is  certainly 
possible. 

No  one  can  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  spirituahty  of 
the  teaching  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah.  Their  one 
ambition  is  to  put  courage  from  God  into  the  poor  hearts 
before  them,  that  these  out  of  their  own  resources 
may  rebuild  their  Temple.  As  Zechariah  puts  it, 
Not  by  mighty  nor  by  power^  but  by  My  Spirit,  saith 
Jehovah  of  Hosts}  It  is  obvious  why  men  of  this 
temper  should  refrain  from  appealing  to  the  Return,  or  to 
the  royal  power  of  Persia  by  which  it  had  been  achieved. 
We  can  understand  why,  while  the  annals  employed 
in  the  Book  of  Ezra  record  the  appeal  of  the  political 
leaders  of  the  Jews  to  Darius  upon  the  strength  of  the 
edict  of  Cyrus,  the  prophets,  in  their  effort  to  encourage 
the  people  to  make  the  most  of  what  they  themselves 
were  and  to  enforce  the  omnipotence  of  God's  Spirit 
apart  from  all  human  aids,  should  be  silent  about 
the  latter.  We  must  also  remember  that  Haggai  and 
Zechariah  were  addressing  a  people  to  whom  (what- 
ever view  we  take  of  the  transactions  under  Cyrus) 
the  favour  of  Cyrus  had  been  one  vast  disillusion  in 
the  light  of  the  predictions  of  Second  Isaiah.^     The 


*  iv.  4. 

^  Of  course  it  is  always  possible  that,  if  there  had  been  no  great 
Return  from  Babylon  under  Cyrus,  the  community  at  Jerusalem  in 
520  had  not  heard  of  the  prophecies  of  the  Second  Isaiah. 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE       211 

Persian  magnate  Sheshbazzar  himself,  invested  with 
full  power,  had  been  unable  to  build  the  Temple  for 
them,  and  had  apparently  disappeared  from  Judah, 
leaving  his  powers  as  Pehah,  or  governor,  to  Zerubbabel. 
Was  it  not,  then,  as  suitable  to  these  circumstances, 
as  it  was  essential  to  the  prophets'  own  religious 
temper,  that  Haggai  and  Zechariah  should  refrain  from 
alluding  to  any  of  the  political  advantages,  to  which 
their  countrymen  had  hitherto  trusted  in  vain  ?  ^ 

Another  fact  should  be  marked.  If  Haggai  is  silent 
about  any  return  from  exile  in  the  past,  he  is  equally 
silent  about  any  in  the  future.  If  for  him  no  return 
had  yet  taken  place,  would  he  not  have  been  likely  to 
predict  it  as  certain  to  happen  ?  ^  At  least  his  silence 
on  the  subject  proves  how  absolutely  he  confined  his 
-^oughts  to  the  circumstances  before  him,  and  to  tHe 
needs  of  his  people  at  the  moment  he  addressed  them. 
Kosters,  indeed,  alleges  that  Zechariah  describes  the 
Return  from  Exile  as  still  future — viz.  in  the  lyric 
piece  appended  to  his  Third  Vision.^  But,  as  we  shall 
see  when  we  come  to  it,  this  lyric  piece  is  most  pro- 
bably an  intrusion  among  the  Visions,  and  is  not  to 
be  assigned  to  Zechariah  himself  Even,  however,  if  it 
were  from  the  same  date  and  author  as  the  Visions,  it 

^  This  argument,  it  is  true,  does  not  fully  account  for  the  curious 
fact  that  Haggai  and  Zechariah  never  call  the  Jewish  community  at 
Jerusalem  by  a  name  significant  of  their  return  from  exile.  But  in 
reference  to  this  it  ought  to  be  noted  that  even  the  Aramaic  document 
in  the  Book  of  Ezra  which  records  the  Return  under  Cyrus  does  not 
call  the  builders  of  the  Temple  by  any  name  which  impHes  that  they 
have  come  up  from  exile,  but  styles  them  simply  the  Jews  who  were 
in  Judah  and  Jerusalem  (Ezr^  v.  i),  in  contrast  to  the  Jews  who  were 
in  foreign  lands. 

"^  Indeed,  why  does  he  ignore  the  whole  Exile  itself  if  no  return 
from  it  has  taken  place  ? 

8  Zech.  ii.  10-17  Heb.,  6-13  Eng. 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


would  not  prove  that  no  return  from  Babylon  had  taken 
place,  but  only  that  numbers  of  Jews  still  remained  in 
Babylon. 

But  we  may  now  take  a  further  step.  If  there  were 
these  natural  reasons  for  the  silence  of  Haggai  and 
Zechariah  about  a  return  of  exiles  under  Cyrus,  can 
that  silence  be  allowed  to  prevail  against  the  mass  of 
testimony  which  we  have  that  such  a  return  took 
place  ?  It  is  true  that,  while  the  Books  of  Haggai  and 
Zechariah  are  contemporary  with  the  period  in  question, 
some  of  the  evidence  for  the  Return,  Ezra  i.  and  iii. — iv.  7, 
is  at  least  two  centuries  later,  and  upon  the  date  of  the 
rest,  the  List  in  Ezra  ii.  and  the  Aramaic  document  in 
Ezra  iv.  8  ff.,  we  have  no  certain  information.  But  that 
the  List  is  from  a  date  very  soon  after  Cyrus  is  allowed 
by  a  large  number  of  the  most  advanced  critics,^  and  even 
if  we  ignore  it,  we  still  have  the  Aramaic  document, 
which  agrees  with  Haggai  and  Zechariah  in  assigning  the 
real,  effectual  beginning  of  the  Temple-building  to  the 
second  year  of  Darius  and  to  the  leadership  of  Zerub- 
babel  and  Jeshua  at  the  instigation  of  the  two  prophets. 
May  we  not  trust  the  same  document  in  its  relation 
of  the  main  facts  concerning  Cyrus  ?  Again,  in  his 
memoirs  Ezra^  speaks  of  the  transgressions  of  the 
Golah  or  B'ne  ha-Golah  in  effecting  marriages  with 
the  mixed  people  of  the  land,  in  a  way  which  shows 
that  he  means  by  the  name,  not  the  Jews  who  had 
just  come  up  with  himself  from  Babylon,  but  the  older 
community  whom  he  found  in   Judah,  and  who  had 

'  E.g.  Stade,  Kuenen  (op.  cit.,  p.  216).  So,  too,  Klostermann,  Gesch, 
des  Volkes  Israel,  Miinchen,  1896.  Wellhausen,  in  the  second  edition 
of  his  Gesch.,  does  not  admit  that  the  List  is  one  of  exiles  returned 
under  Cyrus  (p.  155,  n.). 

'  ix.  4;  X.  6,  7. 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE        213 

had  time,  as  his  own  bands  had  not,  to  scatter  over  the 
land  and  enter  into  social  relations  with  the  heathen. 

But,  as  Kuenen  points  out,^  we  have  yet  further 
evidence  for  the  probability  of  a  Return  under  Cyrus, 
in  the  explicit  predictions  of  the  Second  Isaiah  that 
Cyrus  would  be  the  builder  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
Temple.  "  If  they  express  the  expectation,  nourished 
by  the  prophet  and  his  contemporaries,  then  it  is  clear 
from  their  preservation  for  future  generations  that 
Cyrus  did  not  disappoint  the  hope  of  the  exiles,  from 
whose  midst  this  voice  pealed  forth  to  him."  And  this 
leads  to  other  considerations.  Whether  was  it  more 
probable  for  the  poverty-stricken  people  of  the  land,  the 
dregs  which  Nebuchadrezzar  had  left  behind,  or  for 
the  body  and  flower  of  Israel  in  Babylon,  to  rebuild 
the  Temple  ?  Surely  for  the  latter. ^  Among  them  had 
risen,  as  Cyrus  drew  near  to  Babylon,  the  hopes  and 
the  motives,  nay,  the  glorious  assurance  of  the  Return 
and  the  Rebuilding;  and  with  them  was  all  the 
material  for  the  latter.  Is  it  credible  that  they  took  no 
advantage  of  their  opportunity  under  Cyrus?  Is  it 
credible  that  they  waited  nearly  a  century  before 
seeking  to  return  to  Jerusalem,  and  that  the  building 
of   the   Temple   was   left   to   people   who   were   half- 


^  Op.  cit,  p.  216,  where  he  also  quotes  the  testimony  of  the  Book 
of  Daniel  (ix.  25). 

2  Since  writing  the  above  I  have  seen  the  relevant  notes  to  the 
second  edition  of  Wellhausen's  Gesch.,  pp.  155  and  160,  "The  re- 
founding  of  Jerusalem  and  the  Temple  cannot  have  started  from  the 
Jews  left  behind  in  Palestine."  "The  remnant  left  in  the  land  would 
have  restored  the  old  popular  cultus  of  the  high  places.  Instead  of 
that  we  find  even  before  Ezra  the  legitimate  cultus  and  the  hierocracy 
in  Jerusalem  :  in  the  Temple-service  proper  Ezra  discovers  nothing 
to  reform.  Without  the  leaven  of  the  Golah  the  Judaism  of  Palestine 
is  in  its  origin  incomprehensible." 


214  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

heathen,  and,  in  the  eyes  of  the  exiles,  despicable  and 
unholy?  This  would  be  credible  only  upon  one 
condition,  that  Cyrus  and  his  immediate  successors 
disappointed  the  predictions  of  the  Second  Isaiah  and 
refused  to  allow  the  exiles  to  leave  Babylon.  But  the 
little  we  know  of  these  Persian  monarchs  points  all 
the  other  way :  nothing  is  more  probable,  for  nothing  is 
more  in  harmony  with  Persian  policy,  than  that  Cyrus 
should  permit  the  captives  of  the  Babylon  which  he 
conquered  to  return  to  their  own  lands.^ 

Moreover,  we  have  another,  and  to  the  mind  of  the 
present  writer  an  almost  conclusive  argument,  that  the 
Jews  addressed  by  Haggai  and  Zechariah  were  Jews 
returned  from  Babylon.  Neither  prophet  ever  charges 
his  people  with  idolatry ;  neitner  propHei  so'' much  as 
mention's  idols.  This  is  natural  if  the  congregation 
addressed  was  composed  of  such  pious  and  ardent 
adherents  of  Jehovah,  as  His  word  had  brought  back 
to  Judah,  when  His  servant  Cyrus  opened  the  way.  But 
had  Haggai  and  Zechariah  been  addressing  the  people 
of  the  land,  who  had  never  left  the  land,  they  could  not 
have  helped  speaking  of  idolatry. 

Such  considerations  may  very  justly  be  used  against 
an  argument  which  seeks  to  prove  that  the  narratives 
of  a  Return  under  Cyrus  were  due  to  the  pious 
invention  of  a  Jewish  writer  who  wished  to  record 
that  the  predictions  of  the  Second  Isaiah  were  fulfilled 
by  Cyrus,    their   designated    trustee.^     They  certainly 

^  .The  inscription  of  Cyrus  is  sometimes  quoted  to  this  effect :  cf. 
P.  Hay  Hunter,  op.  cit.,  I.  35,  But  it  would  seem  that  the  statement 
of  Cyrus  is  limited  to  the  restoration  of  Assyrian  idols  and  their 
worshippers  to  Assur  and  Akkad.  Still,  what  he  did  in  this  case 
furnishes  a  strong  argument  for  the  probability  of  his  having  done 
the  same  in  the  case  of  the  Jews. 

2  See  above,  p.  206,  and  especially  n.  3, 


FROM  RETURN   TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE        215 

possess  a  far  higher  degree  of  probability  than  that 
argument  does. 

Finally  there  is  this  consideration.  If  there  was  no 
return  from  Babylon  under  Cyrus,  and  the  Temple,  as 
Dr.  Kosters  alleges,  was  built  by  the  poor  people  of  the 
land,  is  it  likely  that  the  latter  should  have  been  re- 
garded with  such  contempt  as  they  were  b}^  the  exiles 
who  returned  under  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  ?  Theirs 
would  then  have  been  the  glory  of  reconstituting  Israel, 
and  their  position  very  different  from  what  we  find  it. 

On  all  these  grounds,  therefore,  we  must  hold  that 
the  attempt  to  discredit  the  tradition  of  an  important 
return  of  exiles  under  Cyrus  has  not  been  successful ; 
that  such  a  return  remains  the  more  probable  solution 
of  an  obscure  and  difficult  problem ;  and  that  therefore 
the  Jews  who  with  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua  are  re- 
presented in  Haggai  and  Zechariah  as  building  the 
Temple  in  the  second  year  of  Darius,  520,  had  come 
up  from  Babylon  about  537.^  Such  a  conclusion,  of 
course,  need,  not  commit  us  to  the  various  data  offered 
by  the  Chronicler  in  his  story  of  the  Return,  such  as 
the  Edict  of  Cyrus,  nor  to  all  of  his  details. 

2.  Many,  however,  who  grant  the  correctness  of  the 
tradition  that  a  large  number  of  Jewish  exiles  returned 
under  Cyrus  to  Jerusalem,  deny  the  statement  of  the 
Compiler  of  the  Book  of  Ezra  that  the  returned  exiles 
immediately  prepared  to  build  the  Temple  and  laid 
the  foundation-stone   with  solemn    festival,    but  were 


1  Even  Cheyne,  after  accepting  Kosters'  conclusions  as  in  the  main 
points  inevitable  {pp.  cit.,  p.  xxxv),  considers  (p.  xxxviii)  that  "the 
earnestness  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah  (who  cannot  have  stood  alone) 
implies  the  existence  of  a  higher  religious  element  at  Jerusalem  long 
before  432  b.c.  Whence  came  this  higher  element  but  from  its 
natural  home  among  the  more  cultured  Jews  in  Babylonia  ? " 


2i6  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

hindered  from  proceeding  with  the  building  till  the 
second  year  of  Darius.^  They  maintain  that  this  late 
narrative  is  contradicted  by  the  contemporary  state- 
ments of  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  who,  according  to 
them,  imply  that  no  foundation-stone  was  laid  till 
520  B.c.^  For  the  interpretation  of  our  prophets  this 
is  not  a  question  of  cardinal  importance.  But  for 
clearness'  sake  we  do  well  to  lay  it  open. 

We  may  at  once  concede  that  in  Haggai  and 
Zechariah  there  is  nothing  which  necessarily  implies 
that  the  Jews  had  made  any  beginning  to  build  the 
Temple  before  the  start  recorded  by  Haggai  in  the 
year  520.  The  one  passage,  Haggai  ii.  18,  which  is 
cited  to  prove  this^  is  at  the  best  ambiguous,  and 
many  scholars  claim  it  as  a  fixture  of  that  date  for 
the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  ninth  month  of  520.*  At 
the  same  time,  and  even  granting  that  the  latter 
interpretation  of  Haggai  ii.  18  is  correct,  there  is 
nothing  in  either  Haggai  or  Zechariah  to  make  it 
impossible  that  a  foundation-stone  had  been  laid  some 
years  before,  but  abandoned  in  consequence  of  the 
Samaritan  obstruction,  as  alleged  in  Ezra  iii.  8-1 1. 
If  we  keep  in  mind  Haggai's  and  Zechariah's  silence 

•  Ezra  iii.  8-13. 

^  Schrader,  "Ueber  die  Dauer  desTempelbaues,"  in  Stud.  u.  Kn't, 
1879,  460  ff. ;  Stade,  Gesch.  des  Volkes  Israel,  II.  1 15  fF. ;  Kuenen,  op.  cit, 
p.  222;  Kosters,  op.  cit.,  Chap.  I.,  §  i.  To  this  opinion  others  have 
adhered  :  Konig  {Einleit.  in  das  A.T.),  Ryssel  {op.  cit.)  and  Marti  (2nd 
edition  of  Kayser's  Theol.  des  A.  T.,  p.  200).  Schrader  (p.  563) 
argues  that  Ezra  iii.  8-13  was  not  founded  on  a  historical  document, 
but  is  an  imitation  of  Neh.  vii.  73 — viii. ;  and  Stade  that  the  Aramaic 
document  in  Ezra  which  ascribes  the  laying  of  the  foundation-stone 
to  Sheshbazzar,  the  legate  of  Cyrus,  was  not  earlier  than  430. 

^  Ryle,  op.  cit.,  p.  xxx 

*  Stade, ^Wellhausen,  etc.     See  below,  Chap.  XVIII.  on  Hag.  ii.  18. 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE        217 

about  the  Return  from  Babylon,  and  their  very  natural 
concentration  upon  their  own  circumstances/  we  shall 
not  be  able  to  reckon  their  silence  about  previous 
attempts  to  build  the  Temple  as  a  conclusive  proof 
that  these  attempts  never  took  place.  Moreover  the 
Aramaic  document,  which  agrees  with  our  two  prophets 
in  assigning  the  only  effective  start  of  the  work  on 
the  Temple  to  520,^  does  not  deem  it  inconsistent  with 
this  to  record  that  the  Persian  Satrap  of  the  West  of 
the  Euphrates  ^  reported  to  Darius  that,  when  he  asked 
the  Jews  why  they  were  rebuilding  the  Temple,  they 
replied  not  only  that  a  decree  of  Cyrus  had  granted 
them  permission,^  but  that  his  legate  Sheshbazzar  had 
actually  laid  the  foundation-stone  upon  his  arrival  at 
Jerusalem,  and  that  the  building  had  gone  on  without 
interruption  from  that  time  to  520/^  This  last  assertion, 
which  of  course  was  false,  may  have  been  due  either 
to  a  misunderstanding  of  the  Jewish  elders  by  the 
reporting  Satrap,  or  else  to  the  Jews  themselves, 
anxious  to  make  their  case  as  strong  as  possible. 
The  latter  is  the  more  probable  alternative.  As  even 
Stade  admits,  it  was  a  very  natural  assertion  for  the 
Jev.^s  to  make,  and  so  conceal  that  their  effort  of  520 
was  due  to  the  instigation  of  their  own  prophets.  But 
in  any  case  the  Aramaic  document  corroborates  the 
statement  of  the  Compiler  that  there  was  a  foundation- 
stone  laid  in  the  early  years  of  Cyrus,  and  does  not 
conceive  this  to  be  inconsistent  with  its  own  narrative 
of  a  stone  being  laid  in  5  20,  and  an  effective  start  at 
last  made  upon  the  Temple  works.  So  much  does 
Stade  feel  the  force  of  this,  that  he  concedes  not  only 
that  Sheshbazzar  may  have  started  some  preparation 

^  See  above,  pp.  210  f.  ^  Ezra  v.  6.  ^  lb.  16. 

'  Ezra  iv.  24,  v.  I  *  lb.  1 3, 


2i8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

for  building  the  Temple,  but  that  he  may  even  have 
laid  the  stone  with  ceremony.^ 

And  indeed,  is  it  not  in  itself  very  probable  that 
some  early  attempt  was  made  by  the  exiles  returned 
under  Cyrus  to  rebuild  the  house  of  Jehovah  ?  Cyrus 
had  been  predicted  by  the  Second  Isaiah  not  only 
as  the  redeemer  of  God's  people,  but  with  equal  ex- 
plicitness  as  the  builder  of  the  Temple ;  and  all  the 
argument  which  Kuenen  draws  from  the  Second  Isaiah 
for  the  fact  of  the  Return  from  Babylon  ^  tells  with 
almost  equal  force  for  the  fact  of  some  efforts  to 
raise  the  fallen  sanctuary  of  Israel  immediately  after 
the  Return.  Among  the  returned  were  many  priests, 
and  many  no  doubt  of  the  most  sanguine  spirits  in 
Israel.  They  came  straight  from  the  heart  of  Jewry, 
though  that  heart  was  in  Babylon ;  they  came  with  the 
impetus  and  obligation  of  the  great  Deliverance  upon 
them ;  they  were  the  representatives  of  a  community 
which  we  know  to  have  been  comparatively  wealthy. 
Is  it  credible  that  they  should  not  have  begun  the 
Temple  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  ? 

Nor  is  the  story  of  their  frustration  by  the  Samaritans 
any  less  natural.^  It  is  true  that  there  were  not  any 
adversaries  likely  to  dispute  with  the  colonists  the 
land  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem. 
The  Edomites  had  overrun  the  fruitful  country  about 


1  Gesch.,  II.,  p.  123. 

2  See  above,  p.  213. 

^  Ezra  iv.  1-4.  "That  the  relation  of  Ezra  iv.  l-4is  historical  seems 
to  be  established  against  objections  which  have  been  taken  to  it  by 
the  reference  to  Esarhaddon,  which  A.  v.  Gutschmidt  has  vindicated 
by  an  ingenious  historical  combination  with  the  aid  of  the  Assj'rian 
monuments  {Nene  Beitrcige,  p.  145)." — Robertson  Smith,  art.  "Haggai," 
Encyc,  Brit. 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE        219 

Hebron,  and  part  of  the  Shephelah.  The  Samaritans 
held  the  rich  valleys  of  Ephraim,  and  probably  the 
plain  of  Ajalon.  But  if  any  peasants  struggled  with 
the  stony  plateaus  of  Benjamin  and  Northern  Judah, 
such  must  have  been  of  the  remnants  of  the  Jewish 
population  who  were  left.behind  by  Nebuchadrezzar,  and 
who  clung  to  the  sacred  soil  from  habit  or  from  motives 
of  religion.  Jerusalem  was  never  a  site  to  attract  men, 
either  for  agriculture,  or,  now  that  its  shrine  was 
desolate  and  its  population  scattered,  for  the  command 
of  trade.^  The  returned  exiles  must  have  been  at  first 
undisturbed  by  the  envy  of  their  neighbours.  The 
tale  is,  therefore,  probable  which  attributes  the  hostility 
of  the  latter  to  purely  religious  causes — the  refusal  of 
the  Jews  to  allow  the  half-heathen  Samaritans  to 
share  in  the  construction  of  the  Temple.^  Now  the 
Samaritans  could  prevent  the  building.  While  stones 
were  to  be  had  by  the  builders  in  profusion  from  the 
ruins  of  the  city  and  the  great  quarry  to  the  north  of 
it,  ordinary  timber  did  not  grow  in  their  neighbourhood, 
and  though  the  story  be  true  that  a  contract  was  already 
made  with  Phoenicians  to  bring  cedar  to  Joppa,  it  had 
to  be  carried  thence  for  thirty-six  miles.  Here,  then, 
was  the  opportunity  of  the  Samaritans.  They  could 
obstruct  the  carriage  both  of  the  ordinary  timber  and 
of  the  cedar.  To  this  state  of  affairs  the  present 
writer  found  an  analogy  in  1891  among  the  Circassian 
colonies  settled  by  the  Turkish  Government  a  few  years 
earlier  in  the  vicinity  of  Gerasa  and  Rabbath-Ammon. 
The  colonists  had  built  their  houses  from  the  numerous 
ruins  of  these  cities,  but  at  Rabbath-Ammon  they  said 
their  great  difficulty  had  been  about  timber.     And  we 

»  Cf.  Hist.  Geog.,  pp.  317  ff.  '  Ezra  iv. 


THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 


could  well  understand  how  the  Beduin,  who  resented 
the  settlement  of  Circassians  on  lands  they  had  used 
for  ages,  and  with  whom  the  Circassians  were  nearly 
always  at  variance/  did  what  they  could  to  make  the 
carriage  of  timber  impossible.  Similarly  with  the  Jews 
and  their  Samaritan  adversaries.  The  site  might  be 
cleared  and  the  stone  of  the  Temple  laid,  but  if  the 
timber  was  stopped  there  was  little  use  in  raising 
the  walls,  and  the  Jews,  further  discouraged  by  the 
failure  of  their  impetuous  hopes  of  what  the  Return 
would  bring  them,  found  cause  for  desisting  from  their 
efforts.  Bad  seasons  followed,  the  labours  for  their 
own  sustenance  exhausted  their  strength,  and  in  the 
sordid  toil  their  hearts  grew  hard  to  higher  interests. 
Cyrus  died  in  529,  and  his  legate  Sheshbazzar,  having 
done  nothing  but  lay  the  stone,  appears  to  have  left 
Judaea.^  Cambyses  marched  rnore  than  once  through 
Palestine,  and  his  army  garrisoned  Gaza,  but  he  was 
not  a  monarch  to  have  any  consideration  for  Jewish 
ambitions.  Therefore — although  Samaritan  opposition 
ceased  on  the  stoppage  of  the  Temple  works  and 
the  Jews  procured  timber  enough  for  their  private 
dwellings  ^ — is  it  wonderful  that  the  site  of  the  Temple 
should  be  neglected  and  the  stone  laid  by  Sheshbazzar 
forgotten,  or  that  the  disappointed  Jews  should  seek 
to  explain  the  disillusions  of  the  Return,  by  arguing 
that  God's  time  for  the  restoration  of  His  house  had 
not  yet  come  ? 

'  There  was  a  sharp  skirmish  at  Rabbath-Ammon  the  night  we 
spent  there,  and  at  least  one  Circassian  was  shot. 

^  "  Sheshbazzar  presumably  having  taken  up  his^task  with  the  usua 
conscientiousness  of  an  Oriental  governor,  that  is  having  done  nothing 
though  the  work  was  nominally  in  hand  all  along  (Ezra  v.  i6)." — 
Robertson  Smith,  art.  "  Haggai,"  Encyc.  Brit, 

8  See  below,  Chap.  XVIII. 


FROM  RETURN  TO  BUILDING  OF  TEMPLE        221 

The  death  of  a  cruel  monarch  is  always  in  the  East 
an  occasion  for  the  revival  of  shattered  hopes,  and  the 
events  which  accompanied  the  suicide  of  Cambyses  in 
522  were  particularly  fraught  with  the  possibiHties  of 
political  change.  Cambyses'  throne  had  been  usurped 
by  one  Gaumata,  who  pretended  to  be  Smerdis  or 
Barada,  a  son  of  Cyrus.  In  a  few  months  Gaumata 
was  slain  by  a  conspiracy  of  seven  Persian  nobles,  of 
whom  Darius,  the  son  of  Hystaspes,  both  by  virtue  of 
his  royal  descent  and  by  his  own  great  ability,  was 
raised  to  the  throne  in  521.  The  empire  had  been 
too  profoundly  shocked  by  the  revolt  of  Gaumata  to 
settle  at  once  under  the  new  king,  and  Darius  found 
himself  engaged  by  insurrections  in  all  his  provinces 
except  Syria  and  Asia  Minor.^  The  colonists  in  Jeru- 
salem, like  all  their  Syrian  neighbours,  remained  loyal 
to  the  new  king ;  so  loyal  that  their  Pe^iah  or  Satrap 
was  allowed  to  be  one  of  themselves — Zerubbabel,  son 
of  She'alti'el,^  a  son  of  their  royal  house.  Yet  though 
they  were  quiet,  the  nations  were  rising  against  each 
other  and  the  world  was  shaken.  It  was  just  such 
a  crisis  as  had  often  before  in  Israel  rewakened 
prophecy.  Nor  did  it  fail  now;  and  when  prophecy 
was  roused  what  duty  lay  more  clamant  for  its  inspira- 
tion than  the  duty  of  building  the  Temple  ? 

We  are  in  touch  with  the  first  of  our  post-exilic 
prophets,  Haggai  and  Zechariah. 


1  Herod.,  I.  130,  III.  127. 

2  I  Chron.  iii.  19  makes  him  a  son  of  Pedaiah,  brother  of  She'alti'el, 
son  of  Jehoiachin,  the  king  who  was  carried  away  by  Nebuchadrezzar 
in  597  and  remained  captive  till  561,  when  King  Evil-Merodach  set 
him  in  honour.  It  has  been  supposed  that,  She'alti'el  dying  childless, 
Pedaiah  by  levirate  marriage  with  his  widow  became  father  of 
Zerubbabel. 


HAGGAI 


Go  up  into  the  mountain,  and  fetch  wood,  and  build  the  House. 


224 


CHAPTER   XVII 

THE   BOOK   OF  HAGGAI 

THE  Book  of  Haggai  contains  thirty-eight  verses, 
which  have  been  divided  between  two  chapters.^ 
The  text  is,  for  the  prophets,  a  comparatively  sound 
one.  The  Greek  version  affords  a  number  of  correc- 
tions, but  has  also  the  usual  amount  of  misunderstand- 
ings, and,  as  in  the  case  of  other  prophets,  a  few 
additions  to  the  Hebrew  text.^  These  and  the  variations 
in  the  other  ancient  versions  will  be  noted  in  the 
translation  below.^ 

The  book  consists  of  four  sections,  each  recounting 
a  message  from  Jehovah  to  the  Jews  in  Jerusalem  in 
520  B.C.,  the  second  year  of  Darius  (Hystaspis),  by  the 
hand  of  the  prophet  Haggai. 

The  first,  chap,  i.,  dated  the  first  day  of  the  sixth 
month,  during  our  September,  reproves  the  Jews  for 
building  their  own  cieled  houses,  while  they  say  that 
the  time  for  building  Jehovah^  s  house  has  not  yet  come; 

'  In  the  English  Bible  the  divisidn  corresponds  to  that  of  the  Hebrew, 
which  gives  fifteen  verses  to  chap.  i.  The  LXX.  takes  the  fifteenth 
verse  along  vi-ith  ver.  I  of  chap.  ii. 

^  ii.  9,  14  :  see  on  these  passages,  pp.  243,  n.  I,  246,  n.  4. 

^  Besides  the  general  works  on  the  text  of  the  Twelve  Prophets, 
already  cited,  M.  Tony  Andree  has  published  Etat  Critique  du  Texte 
cfAggee  :  Quatre  Tableaux  Comparatifs  (Paris,  1893),  which  is  also 
included  in  his  general  introduction  and  commentary  on  the  prophet, 
quoted  below.  

VOL.  II.  225  y  15 


226  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

affirms  that  this  is  the  reason  of  their  poverty  and 
of  a  great  drought  which  has  afflicted  them.  A  piece 
of  narrative  is  added  recounting  how  Zerubbabel  and 
Jeshua,  the  heads  of  the  community,  were  stirred  by 
this  word  to  lead  the  people  to  begin  work  on  the 
Temple,  on  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  same  month. 

The  second  section,  chap.  ii.  1-9,  contains  a  message, 
dated  the  twenty-first  day  of  the  seventh  month,  during 
our  October,  in  which  the  builders  are  encouraged  for 
their  work.  Jehovah  is  about  to  shake  all  nations, 
these  shall  contribute  of  their  wealth,  and  the  latter 
glory  of  the  Temple  be  greater  than  the  former. 

The  third  section,  chap.  ii.  10-19,  contains  a  word 
of  Jehovah  which  came  to  Haggai  on  the  twenty-fourth 
day  of  the  ninth  month,  during  our  December.  It  is 
in  the  form  of  a  parable  based  on  certain  ceremonial 
laws,  according  to  which  the  touch  of  a  holy  thing  does 
not  sanctify  so  much  as  the  touch  of  an  unholy  pollutes. 
Thus  is  the  people  polluted,  and  thus  every  work  of 
their  hands.  Their  sacrifices  avail  nought,  and  adver- 
sity has  persisted  :  small  increase  of  fruits,  blasting, 
mildew  and  hail.     But  from  this  day  God  will  bless. 

The  fourth  section,  chap.  ii.  20-23,  is  a  second  word 
from  the  Lord  to  Haggai  on  the  twenty-fourth  day  of 
the  ninth  month.  It  is  for  Zerubbabel,  and  declares 
that  God  will  overthrow  the  thrones  of  kingdoms  and 
destroy  the  forces  of  many  of  the  Gentiles  by  war. 
In  that  day  Zerubbabel,  the  Lord's  elect  servant,  shall 
be  as  a  signet  to  the  Lord. 

The  authenticity  of  all  these  four  sections  was 
doubted  by  no  one/   till  ten   years   ago   W.  Bohme, 

'  Robertson  Smith  {Encyc.  Brit,  art.  "Haggai,"  1880)  does  not 
even  mention  authenticity.  "Without  doubt  from  Haggai  himself" 
(Kuenen).     "The   Book  of  Haggai  is  without  doubt  to  be  dated, 


THE  BOOK  OF  HAGGAI  227 

besides  pointing  out  some  useless  repetitions  of  single 
words  and  phrases,  cast  suspicion  on  chap.  i.  1 3,  and  ques- 
tioned the  whole  of  the  fourth  section,  chap.  ii.  20-23.^ 
With  regard  to  chap.  i.  13,  it  is  indeed  curious  that 
Haggai  should  be  described  as  the  messenger  of  Jehovah ; 
while  the  message  itself,  /  am  with  you^  seems  super- 
fluous here,  and  if  the  verse  be  omitted,  ver.  14  runs 
on  naturally  to  ver.  \2?  Bohme's  reasons  for  disputing 
the  authenticity  of  chap.  ii.  20-23  ^re  much  less 
sufficient.  He  thinks  he  sees  the  hand  of  an  editor 
in  the  phrase  for  a  second  time  in  ver.  20 ;  notes  the 
omission  of  the  title  **  prophet  "  ^  after  Haggai's  name, 
and  the  difference  of  the  formula  the  word  came  to 
Haggai  from  that  employed  in  the  previous  sections,  by 
the  hand  of  Haggai,  and  the  repetition  of  ver.  6^  in 
ver.  21  ;  and  otherwise  concludes  that  the  section  is  an 
insertion  from  a  later  hand.  But  the  formula  the  word 
came  to  Haggai  occurs  also  in  ii.  10:'*  the  other  points 
are  trivial,  and  while  it  was  most  natural  for  Haggai 
the  contemporary  of  Zerubbabel  to  entertain  of  the 
latter  such  hopes  as  the  passage  expresses,  it  is  in- 
conceivable that  a  later  writer,  who  knew  how  they 
had  not  been  fulfilled  in  Zerubbabel,  should  have 
invented  them.^ 

Recently  M.  Tony  Andree,  privat-docent  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Geneva,  has  issued  a  large  work  on  Haggai,^  in 
which  he  has  sought  to  prove  that  the  third  section  of 

according  to  its  whole  extant  contents,  from  the  prophet  Haggai, 
whose  work  fell  in  the  year  520 "  (Konig).  So  Driver,  Kirkpatrick, 
Cornill,  etc. 

1  Z.A.T.W.,  1887,  215  f.  3  Which  occurs  only  in  the  LXX. 

^  So  also  Wellhausen.  *  See  note  on  that  verse. 

^  Cf.  Wildeboer,  Litter,  des  A.  T.,  294. 

^  Le  Prophete  Aggee,  Introduction  Critique  et  Commentaire.  Paris, 
Fischbacher,  1893. 


228  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  book,  chap.  ii.  (lo)  11-19,  is  from  the  hand  of 
another  writer  than  the  rest.  He  admits  ^  that  in 
neither  form,  nor  style,  nor  language  is  there  anything 
to  prove  this  distinction,  and  that  the  ideas  of  all  the 
sections  suit  perfectly  the  condition  of  the  Jews  in  the 
time  soon  after  the  Return.  But  he  considers  that 
chap.  ii.  (10)  11-19  interrupts  the  connection  between 
the  sections  upon  either  side  of  it;  that  the  author 
is  a  legalist  or  casuist,  while  the  author  of  the  other 
sections  is  a  man  whose  only  ecclesiastical  interest  is 
the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple ;  that  there  are  obvious 
contradictions  between  chap.  ii.  (10)  11-19  and  the  rest 
of  the  book ;  and  that  there  is  a  difference  of  vocabulary. 
Let  us  consider  each  of  these  reasons. 

The  first,  that  chap.  ii.  (10)  11 -19  interrupts  the  con- 
nection between  the  sections  on  either  side  of  it,  is  true 
only  in  so  far  as  it  has  a  different  subject  from  that 
which  the  latter  have  more  or  less  in  common.  But 
the  second  of  the  latter,  chap.  ii.  20-23,  treats  only  of 
a  corollary  of  the  first,  chap.  ii.  1-9,  and  that  corollary 
may  well  have  formed  the  subject  of  a  separate  oracle. 
Besides,  as  we  shall  see,  chap.  ii.  10-19  is  a  natural 
development  of  chap,  i.^  The  contradictions  alleged  by 
M.  Andree  are  two.  He  points  out  that  while  chap.  i. 
speaks  only  of  a  droughty^  chap.  ii.  (10)  1 1-19  mentions  * 
as  the  plagues  on  the  crops  shiddaphon  and  yerakon, 
generally  rendered  blasting  and  mildew  in  our  English 
Bible,  and  barad,  or  hail)  and  these  he  reckons  to  be 
plagues  due  not  to  drought  but  to  excessive  moisture. 
But  shiddaphon  and  yerakon,  which  are  always  connected 
in  the  Old  Testament  and  are  words  of  doubtful  meaning, 
are  not  referred  to  damp  in  any  of  the  passages  in 

1  Page  151.  '  i.  10,  II. 

*  Below,  p.  249.  *  ii.  17. 


THE   BOOK   OF  HAGGAI  229 

which  they  occur,  but,  on  the  contrary,  appear  to  be 
the  consequences  of  drought.^  The  other  contradiction 
alleged  refers  to  the  ambiguous  verse  ii.  1 8,  on  which  we 
have  already  seen  it  difficult  to  base  any  conclusion,  and 
which  will  be  treated  when  we  come  to  it  in  the  course 
of  translation.^  Finally,  the  differences  in  language 
which  M.  Andr^e  cites  are  largely  imaginary,  and  it 
is  hard  to  understand  how  a  responsible  critic  has 
come  to  cite,  far  more  to  emphasise  them,  as  he  has 
done.  We  may  relegate  the  discussion  of  them  to  a 
note,^  and  need  here  only  remark  that  there  is  among 

'  They  follow  drought  in  Amos  iv.  9 ;  and  in  the  other  passages 
where  they  occur — Deut.  xxviii.  22 ;  i  Kings  viii.  37  ;  2  Chron.  vi.  28 
— they  are  mentioned  in  a  list  of  possible  plagues  after  famine,  or 
pestilence,  or  fevers,  all  of  which,  with  the  doubtful  exception  of 
fevers,  followed  drought. 

^  Above,  p.  216;  below,  p.  248,  n.  2. 

^  Some  of  M.  Andree's  alleged  differences  need  not  be  discussed  at 
all,  e.g.  that  between  ''330  and  '•JQ?.  But  here  are  the  others.  He 
asserts  that  while  chap.  i.  calls  oil  and  wine  "yishar  and  tirSsh," 
chap.  ii.  (10)  11-19  calls  them  "  yayin  and  shemen."  But  he  over- 
looks the  fact  that  the  former  pair  of  names,  meaning  the  newly 
pressed  oil  and  wine,  suit  their  connection,  in  which  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  are  being  catalogued,  i.  11,  while  the  latter  pair,  meaning  the 
finished  wine  and  oil,  equally  suit  their  connection,  in  which  articles 
of  food  are  being  catalogued,  ii.  12.  Equally  futile  is  the  distinction 
drawn  between  i.  9,  which  speaks  of  bringing  the  crops  to  the  house, 
or  as  we  should  say  home,  and  ii.  19,  which  speaks  of  seed  being  in 
the  barn.  Again,  what  is  to  be  said  of  a  critic  who  adduces  in 
evidence  of  distinction  of  authorship  the  fact  that  i.  6  employs  the 
verb  labhash,  to  clothe,  while  ii.  12  uses  beged  for  garment,  and  who 
actually  puts  in  brackets  the  root  bagad,  as  if  it  anywhere  in  the 
Old  Testament  meant  to  clothe  !  Again,  Andr^e  remarks  that  while 
ii.  (10)  11-19  does  not  employ  the  epithet  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  but  only 
hhovah,  the  rest  of  the  book  frequently  uses  the  former;  but  he 
omits  to  observe  that  the  rest  of  the  book,  besides  using  Jehovak  of 
Hosts,  often  uses  the  name  Jehovah  alone  [the  phrase  in  ii.  (10)  11-19 
is  mrr*  DNJ,  and  occurs  twice  ii.  14,  17  ;  but  the  rest  of  the  book  has 
also  mn^  D«:,  ii.  4;  and  besides  HIH^  -121,  i.  i,  ii.  i,  ii.  20;  HIH^  1Di<, 
i.  8;  and  Wrhii  n)n^  and  HIH^  ^3DD,  i.  12].     Again,  Andrde  observes 


aso  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

them  but  one  of  any  significance  :  while  the  rest  of  the 
book  calls  the  Temple  the  House  or  the  House  of 
Jehovah  (or  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts),  chap.  ii.  (lo)  11-19 
styles  it  palace,  or  temple,  of  Jehovah.^  On  such  a 
difference  between  two  comparatively  brief  passages 
it  would  be  unreasonable  to  decide  for  a  distinction  of 
authorship. 

There  is,  therefore,  no  reason  to  disagree  with  the 
consensus  of  all  other  critics  in  the  integrity  of  the 
Book  of  Haggai.  The  four  sections  are  either  from 
himself  or  from  a  contemporary  of  his.  They  probably 
represent,^  not  the  full  addresses  given  by  him  on  the 
occasions  stated,  but  abstracts  or  summaries  of  these. 
''It  is  never  an  easy  task  to  persuade  a  whole  popula- 
tion to  make  pecuniary  sacrifices,  or  to  postpone  private 
to  public  interests ;  and  the  probabiHty  is,  that  in 
these  brief  remains  of  the  prophet  Haggai  we  have 
but  one  or  two  specimens  of  a  ceaseless  diligence  and 
persistent  determination,  which  upheld  and  animated 
the  whole  people  till   the  work  was  accomplished."  ^ 

that  while  the  rest  of  the  book  designates  Israel  always  by  UV  and 
the  heathen  by  ^1J,  chap,  ii,  (lo)  II-19,  in  ver.  14,  uses  both  terms  of 
Israel.  Yet  in  this  latter  case  ^"l^l  is  used  only  in  parallel  to  WV, 
as  frequently  in  other  parts  of  the  Old  Testament.  Again,  that  while 
in  the  rest  of  the  book  Haggai  is  called  the  prophet  (the  doubtful 
i.  13  may  be  omitted),  he  is  simply  named  in  ii,  (10)  II-19,  means 
nothing,  for  the  name  here  occurs  only  in  introducing  his  contribution 
to  a  conversation,  in  recording  which  it  was  natural  to  omit  titles, 
Similarly  insignificant  is  the  fact  that  while  the  rest  of  the  book 
mentions  only  the  High  Priest,  chap,  ii.  (10)  II-19  talks  only  of  the 
priests  :  because  here  again  each  is  suitable  to  the  connection. — Two  or 
three  of  Andrea's  alleged  grounds  (such  as  that  from  the  names  for 
wine  and  oil  and  that  from  labhash  and  begad)  are  enough  to  discredit 
his  whole  case.  ^  ii.  15,  18. 

"^  In  this  opinion,  stated  first  by  Eichhorn,  most  critics  agree. 

^  Marcus  Dods,  Haggai,  Zechariah  and  Malachi,  1 879,  in  Handbooks 
for  Bible  Classes  :  Edin.,  T.  &  T.  Clark. 


THE  BOOK  OF  HAGGAI  231 

At  the  same  time  it  must  be  noticed  that  the  style 
of  the  book  is  not  wholly  of  the  bare,  jejune  prose 
which  it  is  sometimes  described  to  be.  The  passages 
of  Haggai's  own  exhortation  are  in  the  well-known 
parallel  rhythm  of  prophetic  discourse  :  see  especially 
chap,  i.,  ver.  6. 

The  only  other  matter  of  Introduction  to  the  prophet 
Haggai  is  his  name.  The  precise  form  ^  is  not  else- 
where found  in  the  Old  Testament ;  but  one  of  the 
clans  of  the  tribe  of  Gad  is  called  Haggi,^  and  the 
letters  H  G  I  occur  as  the  consonants  of  a  name  on 
a  Phoenician  inscription.^  Some  *  have  taken  Haggai  to 
be  a  contraction  of  Haggiyah,  the  name  of  a  Levitical 
family,^  but  although  the  final  yod  of  some  proper 
names  stands  for  Jehovah,  we  cannot  certainly  con- 
clude that  it  is  so  in  this  case.  Others  ®  see  in  Haggai 
a  probable  contraction  for  Hagariah,'^  as  Zaccai,  the 
original  of  Zacchaeus,  is  a  contraction  of  Zechariah.® 
A  more  general  opinion^  takes  the  termination  as 
adjectival,^^  and  the  root  to  be  "  hag,"y^<3!s^  or  festival}^ 
In  that  case  Haggai  would  mea.n  festal,  and  it  has  been 
supposed  that  the  name  would  be  given  to  him  from 


'    '"in,  Greek  'A77aios. 

2  ""^Hj  Gen.  xlvi.  16,  Num.  xxvi.  15  ;  Greek  'Ayyei,  'Ayyei^.  The 
feminine  rT'Jirij  Haggith,  was  the  name  of  one  of  David's  wives  : 
2  Sam.  iii.  4. 

^  No.  67  of  the  Phoenician  inscriptions  in  C  /.  5, 

*  Hiller,  Onont.  Sacrum,  Tiib.,  1706  (quoted  by  Andree),  and  Pusey. 

*  n*2n,  I  Chron.  vi.  15;  Greek 'A776a,  Lu. 'A^aia. 

^  Kohler,  Nachexil.  Proph.,  I.  2;  Wellhausen  in  fourth  edition   of 
Bleek's  Einleiiung ;  Robertson  Smith,  Encyc.  Brit.,  art.  "Haggai." 
■^  T\^'^yri=' Jehovah  hath  girded. 
8  Derenbourg,  Hist,  de  la  Palestine,  pp.  95,  150. 
^  Jerome,  Gesenius,  and  most  moderns. 
»»  As  in  the  names  ''^t'^5,    *5''l'?3,    'h?.^  etc. 
*'  The  radical  double  g  of  which  appears  in  composition. 


232 


THE    TWELVE  PROPHETS 


his  birth  on  the  day  of  some  feast.  It  is  impossible 
to  decide  with  certainty  among  these  alternatives. 
M.  Andree/  who  accepts  the  meaning  festal^  ventures 
the  hypothesis  that,  like  "  Malachi,"  Haggai  is  a  symbolic 
title  given  by  a  later  hand  to  the  anonymous  writer 
of  the  book,  because  of  the  coincidence  of  his  various 
prophecies  with  solemn  festivals.^  But  the  name  is 
too  often  and  too  naturally  introduced  into  the  book 
to  present  any  analogy  to  that  of  "  Malachi " ;  and 
the  hypothesis  may  be  dismissed  as  improbable  and 
unnatural. 

Nothing  more  is  known  of  Haggai  than  his  name 
and  the  facts  given  in  his  book.  But  as  with  the 
other  prophets  whom  we  have  treated,  so  with  this 
one,  Jewish  and  Christian  legends  have  been  very 
busy.  Other  functions  have  been  ascribed  to  him ; 
a  sketch  of  his  biography  has  been  invented.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Rabbis  he  was  one  of  the  men  of  the  Great 
Synagogue,  and  with  Zechariah  and  '*  Malachi  "  trans- 
mitted to  that  mythical  body  the  tradition  of  the  older 
prophets.^  He  was  the  author  of  several  ceremonial 
regulations,  and  with  Zechariah  and  *'  Malachi "  intro- 
duced into  the  alphabet  the  terminal  forms  of  the  five 
elongated  letters.*  The  Christian  Fathers  narrate  that 
he  was  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,^  that  with  Zechariah  he 
prophesied  in  exile  of  the  Return,^  and  was  still  young 
when  he  arrived  in  Jerusalem,^  where  he  died  and  was 

>  Op.  cit,  p.  8. 

"^  i.  I,  the  new  moon ;  ii.  I,  the  seventh  day  of  the  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles;  ii.  i8,  the  foundation  of  the  Temple  (?). 
^  Baba-bathra,  15a,  etc. 
*  Megilla,  26. 

'  Hesychius  :  see  above,  p  80,  n. 
®  Augustine,  Enarratto  in  Psalm  cxlvii. 
'  Pseud-Epiphanius,  De  Vitis  Prophetarum. 


THE  BOOK  OF  HAGGAI  233 

buried.  A  strange  legend,  founded  on  the  doubtful 
verse  which  styles  him  the  messenger  of  Jehovah^ 
gave  out  that  Haggai,  as  well  as  for  similar  reasons 
"  Malachi "  and  John  the  Baptist,  were  not  men,  but 
angels  in  human  shape. -^  With  Zechariah  Haggai 
appears  on  the  titles  of  Psalms  cxxxvii.,  cxlv. — cxlviii. 
in  the  Septuagint ;  cxi.,  cxlv.,  cxlvi.  in  the  Vulgate ;  and 
cxxv.,  cxxvi.  and  cxlv. — cxlviii.  in  the  Peshitto.^  "  In 
the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  he  was  the  first  who  chanted 
the  Hallelujah,  .  .  .  wherefore  we  say  :  Hallelujah, 
which  is  the  hymn  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah."^  All 
these  testimonies  are,  of  course,  devoid  of  value. 

Finally,  the  modern  inference  from  chap.  ii.  3,  that 
Haggai  in  his  youth  had  seen  the  former  Temple,  had 
gone  into  exile,  and  was  now  returned  a  very  old 
man,'*  may  be  probable,  but  is  not  certain.  We  are 
quite  ignorant  of  his  age  at  the  time  the  word  of 
Jehovah  came  to  him. 

^  Jerome  on  Hag.  i.  13. 

^  Eusebius  did  not  find  these  titles  in  the  Hexaplar  Septuagint. 
See  Field's  Hexaplar  on  Psalm  cxlv.  I,  The  titles  are  of  course 
wholly  without  authority. 

'  Pseud-Epiphanius,  as  above. 

*  So  Ewald,  Wildeboer  (p.  295)  and  others. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

HAGGAI  AND   THE  BUILDING   OF  THE    TEMPLE 
Haggai  i.,  ii 

WE  have  seen  that  the  most  probable  solution  ot 
the  problems  presented  to  us  by  the  inadequate 
and  confused  records  of  the  time  is  that  a  consider- 
able number  of  Jewish  exiles  returned  from  Jerusalem 
to  Babylon  about  537,  upon  the  permission  of  Cyrus, 
and  that  the  Satrap  whom  he  sent  with  them  not  only 
allowed  them  to  raise  the  altar  on  its  ancient  site, 
but  himself  laid  for  them  the  foundation-stone  of  the 
Temple.^ 

We  have  seen,  too,  why  this  attempt  led  to  nothing, 
and  we  have  followed  the  Samaritan  obstructions,  the 
failure  of  the  Persian  patronage,  the  drought  and 
bad  harvests,  and  all  the  disillusion  of  the  fifteen 
years  which  succeeded  the  Return.^  The  hostility  01 
the  Samaritans  was  entirely  due  to  the  refusal  of  the 
Jews  to  give  them  a  share  in  the  construction  of  the 

'  See  above,  pp.  210-18,  and  emphasise  specially  the  facts  that  the 
most  pronounced  adherents  of  Kosters'  theory  seek  to  qualify  his 
absolute  negation  of  a  Return  under  Cyrus,  by  the  admission  that 
some  Jews  did  return ;  and  that  even  Stade,  who  agrees  in  the  main 
with  Schrader  that  no  attempt  was  made  by  the  Jews  to  begin 
building  the  Temple  till  520,  admits  the  probability  of  a  stone  being 
laid  by  Sheshbazzar  about  536. 

"^  See  above,  pp.  218  ff. 

234 


Hag.i.,ii.]    HAGGAI  AND  THE  TEMPLE-BUILDING  235 

Temple,  and  its  virulence,  probably  shown  by  preventing 
the  Jews  from  procuring  timber,  seems  to  have  ceased 
when  the  Temple  works  were  stopped.     At  least  we 
find  no  mention  of  it  in  our  prophets;  and  the  Jews 
are  furnished  with  enough  of  timber  to  panel  and  ciel 
their  own  houses.^     But  the  Jews  must   have  feared 
a  renewal  of  Samaritan  attacks  if  they  resumed  work 
on  the  Temple,  and  for  the  rest  they  were  too  sodden 
with  adversity,  and  too  weighted  with  the  care  of  their 
own  sustenance,  to  spring  at  higher  interests.     What 
immediately  precedes  our  prophets  is  a  miserable  story 
of  barren  seasons  and  little  income,  money  leaking  fast 
away,  and  every  man's  sordid  heart  engrossed  with  his 
own  household.     Little  wonder  that  critics  have  been 
led  to  deny  the  great  Return  of  sixteen  years  back, 
with  its  grand  ambitions  for  the  Temple  and  glorious 
future  of  Israel.     But  the  like  collapse  has  often  been 
experienced  in  history  when  bands  of  religious  men, 
going    forth,    as    they    thought,    to    freedom    and    the 
immediate  erection  of  a  holy  commonwealth,  have  found 
their  unity  wrecked  and  their  enthusiasm  dissipated  by 
a   few  inclement  seasons    on  a  barren    and  a  hostile 
shore.     Nature  and  their  barbarous  fellow-men   have 
frustrated    what    God     had    promised.      Themselves, 
accustomed  from  a  high  stage  of  civilisation   to  plan 
still  higher  social  structures,  are  suddenly  reduced  to 
the  primitive  necessities  of  tillage  and  defence  against 
a  savage  foe.     Statesmen,  poets  and  idealists  of  sorts 
have  to  hoe  the  ground,  quarry  stones  and  stay  up  of 
nights  to  watch  as  sentinels.     Destitute  of  the  comforts 
and  resources  with  which  they  have  grown  up,  they  live 
in  constant  battle  with  their  bare  and  unsympathetic 

*  Hag.  i.  4. 


236  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

environs.  It  is  a  familiar  tale  in  history,  and  we  read 
it  with  ease  in  the  case  of  Israel.  The  Jews  enjoyed 
this  advantage,  that  they  came  not  to  a  strange  land, 
but  to  one  crowded  with  inspiring  memories,  and  they 
had  behind  them  the  most  glorious  impetus  of  prophecy 
which  ever  sent  a  people  forward  to  the  future.  Yet 
the  very  ardours  of  this  hurried  them  past  a  due 
appreciation  of  the  difficulties  they  would  have  to 
encounter,  and  when  they  found  themselves  on  the 
stony  soil  of  Judah,  which  they  had  been  idealising 
for  fifty  years,  and  were  further  afflicted  by  barren 
seasons,  their  hearts  must  have  suffered  an  even  more 
bitter  disillusion  than  has  so  frequently  fallen  to  the 
lot  of  religious  emigrants  to  an  absolutely  new  coast. 

I.  The  Call  to  Build  (Chap.  i.). 

It  was  to  this  situation,  upon  an  autumn  day,  when 
the  colonists  felt  another  year  of  beggarly  effort  behind 
them  and  their  wretched  harvest  had  been  brought 
home,  that  the  prophet  Haggai  addressed  himself 
With  rare  sense  he  confined  his  efforts  to  the  practical 
needs  of  the  moment.  The  sneers  of  modern  writers 
have  not  been  spared  upon  a  style  that  is  crabbed  and 
jejune,  and  they  have  esteemed  this  to  be  a  collapse 
of  the  prophetic  spirit,  in  which  Haggai  ignored 
all  the  achievements  of  prophecy  and  interpreted  the 
word  of  God  as  only  a  call  to  hew  wood  and  lay 
stone  upon  stone.  But  the  man  felt  what  the  moment 
needed,  and  that  is  the  supreme  mark  of  the  prophet. 
Set  a  prophet  there,  and  what  else  could  a  prophet 
have  done  ?  It  would  have  been  futile  to  rewaken 
those  most  splendid  voices  of  the  past,  which  had  in 
part  been  the  reason  of  the  people's  disappointment, 
and  equally  futile  to  interpret  the  mission  of  the  great 


Hag.  i.,  ii.]     HAGGAI  AND  THE  TEMPLE-BUILDING  237 

world  powers  towards  God's  people.  What  God's 
people  themselves  could  do  for  themselves — that  was 
what  needed  telling  at  the  moment ;  and  if  Haggai 
told  it  with  a  meagre  and  starved  style,  this  also  was 
in  harmony  with  the  occasion.  One  does  not  expect 
it  otherwise  when  hungry  men  speak  to  each  other 
of  their  duty. 

Nor  does  Haggai  deserve  blame  that  he  interpreted 
the  duty  as  the  material  building  of  the  Temple. 
This  was  no  mere  ecclesiastical  function.  Without 
the  Temple  the  continuity  of  Israel's  religion  could 
not  be  maintained.  An  independent  state,  with  the 
full  courses  of  civic  life,  was  then  impossible.  The 
ethical  spirit,  the  regard  for  each  other  and  God,  could 
prevail  over  their  material  interests  in  no  other  way 
than  by  common  devotion  to  the  worship  of  the  God 
of  their  fathers.  In  urging  them  to  build  the  Temple 
from  their  own  unaided  resources,  in  abstaining  from 
all  hopes  of  imperial  patronage,  in  making  the  business 
one,  not  of  sentiment  nor  of  comfortable  assurance 
derived  from  the  past  promises  of  God,  but  of  plain 
and  hard  duty — Haggai  illustrated  at  once  the  sanity 
and  the  spiritual  essence  of  prophecy  in  Israel. 

Professor  Robertson  Smith  has  contrasted  the  central 
importance  which  Haggai  attached  to  the  Temple  with 
the  attitude  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  to  whom  "  the 
religion  of  Israel  and  the  holiness  of  Jerusalem  have 
little  to  do  with  the  edifice  of  the  Temple.  The  city 
is  holy  because  it  is  the  seat  of  Jehovah's  sovereignty 
on  earth,  exerted  in  His  dealings  with  and  for  the  state 
of  Judah  and  the  kingdom  of  David." ^  At  the  same 
time  it  ought  to  be  pointed  out  that  even  to  Isaiah  the 

*  Art.  "  Haggai,"  Encyc.  Brit. 


238  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Temple  was  the  dwelling-place  of  Jehovah,  and  if  it 
had  been  lying  in  ruins  at  his  feet,  as  it  was  at  Haggai's, 
there  is  little  doubt  he  would  have  been  as  earnest  as 
Haggai  in  urging  its  reconstruction.  Nor  did  the 
Second  Isaiah,  who  has  as  lofty  an  idea  of  the  spiritual 
destiny  of  the  people  as  any  other  prophet,  lay  less 
emphasis  upon  the  cardinal  importance  of  the  Temple 
to  their  life,  and  upon  the  certainty  of  its  future  glory. 

In  the  second  year  of  Darius  ^  the  king^  in  the  sixth 
month  and  the  first  day  of  the  month — that  is,  on  the 
feast  of  the  new  moon — the  word  of  Jehovah  came 
by  ^  Haggai  the  prophet  to  Zerubbabel,  son  of  She'altfel^ 
Satrap  of  Judah,  and  to  Jehoshud ,  son  of  Jehosadak,^  the 
high  priest — the  civil  and  religious  heads  of  the  com- 
munity— as  follows  '" : — 

Thus  hath  Jehovah  of  Hosts  spoken^  saying:  This 
people  have  said,  Notyet^  is  come  the  time  for  the  building 
of  JehovaKs  House.  Therefore  Jehovah^ s  word  is  come 
by  Haggai  the  prophet,  saying :  Is  it  a  time  for  you — 
you  ^ — to  be  dwelling  in  houses  cieled  with  planks,^  while 
this  House  is  waste  ?  And  now  thus  saith  Jehovah  of 
Hosts  :  Lay  to  heart  how  things  have  gone  with  you.^    Ye 

'  Heb.  Darya vesh.  *  See  below,  pp.  258,  279,  292  ff. 

^  Heb.  by  the  hand  of.  ^  Heb.  saying. 

'  See  above,  pp.  199  f.  and  221. 

^  For  N3"nj?  i<7  =  not  the  time  of  coming  read  with  Hitzig  and 
Wellhausen  ^{l  7\'Q  N?,  not  now  is  come;  (or_!RV  cf.  Ezek.  xxiii.  4, 
Psalm  Ixxiv.  6. 

^  The  emphasis  may  be  due   only  to   the  awkward  grammatical 

construction. 

^  D''21QD,  from  |SD,  to  cover  with  planks  of  cedar,  2  Kings  vi.  9 : 
cf.  iii.  7. 

®  Heb.  set  your  hearts  (see  Vol.  I.,  pp.  258,  275,  321,  323)  iipon  your 

ways ;  but  your  ways  cannot  mean  here,  as  elsewhere,  your  conduct, 

but  obviously  from  what  follows  the  ways  you  have  been  led,  the  way 

things  have  gone  with  you — the  barren  seasons  and  little  income. 


Hag.i.,ii.]   HAGGAI  AND  THE  TEMPLE-BUILDING  239 

sowed  much  but  had  little  income^  ate  and  were  not 
satisfied,  drank  and  were  not  full,  put  on  clothing  and 
there  was  no  warmth,  while  he  that  earned  wages  has 
earned  them  into  a  bag  with  holes. 

Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts :  ^  Go  up  into  the 
mountain — the  hill-country  of  Judah — and  bring  in 
timber,  and  build  the  House,  that  I  may  take  pleasure 
in  it,  and  show  My  glory,  saith  Jehovah.  Ye  looked  for 
much  and  it  has  turned  out  little,^  and  what  ye  brought 
home  I  puffed  at.  On  account  of  what? — oracle  of 
Jehovah  oj  Hosts — on  account  of  My  House  which 
is  waste,  while  ye  are  hurrying  every  man  after  his 
own  house.  Therefore  ^  hath  heaven  shut  off  the  dew,^ 
and  earth  shut  off  her  increase.  And  I  have  called 
drought  upon  the  earth,  both  upon  the  mountains^""  and 
upon  the  corn,  and  upon  the  wine,  and  upon  the  oil,  and 
upon  what  the  ground  brings  forth,  and  upon  man, 
and  upon  beast,  and  upon  all  the  labour  of  the  hands. 

For  ourselves,  Haggai's  appeal  to  the  barren  seasons 
and  poverty  of  the  people  as  proof  of  God's  anger  with 
their  selfishness  must  raise  questions.  But  we  have 
already  seen,  not  only  that  natural  calamities  were  by 
the  ancient  world  interpreted  as  the  penal  instruments 
of  the  Deity,  but  that  all  through  history  they  have 
had  a  wonderful  influence  on  the  spirits  of  men,  forcing 
them  to  search  their  own  hearts  and  to    believe    that 


*  The  Hebrew  and  Versions  here  insert  set  your  hearts  upon  your 
ways,  obviously  a  mere  clerical  repetition  from  ver.  5. 

""  For  tayn^)  n:ni  read  with  the  LXX.  ]:>)i^h  H^ll  or  M^l. 

'  The  DDvy  here  inserted  in  the  Hebrew  text  is  unparsable,  not 
found  in  the  LXX.  and  probably  a  clerical  error  by  dittography  from 
the  preceding  p"?y. 

*  Heb.  heavens  are  shut  from  dew.  But  perhaps  the  D  of  7t3D 
should  be  deleted.  So  Wellhausen.  There  is  no  instance  of  an 
intransitive  Qal  of  t5?3.  '  Query  ? 


240  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Providence  is  conducted  for  other  ends  than  those  of 
our  physical  prosperity.  ^'Have  not  those  who  have 
believed  as  Amos  believed  ever  been  the  strong  spirits 
of  our  race,  making  the  very  disasters  which  crushed 
them  to  the  earth  the  tokens  that  God  has  great  views 
about  them  ? "  ^  Haggai,  therefore,  takes  no  sordid 
view  of  Providence  when  he  interprets  the  seasons, 
from  which  his  countrymen  had  suffered,  as  God's 
anger  upon  their  selfishness  and  delay  in  building  His 
House. 

The  straight  appeal  to  the  conscience  of  the  Jews 
had  an  immediate  effect.  Within  three  weeks  they 
began  work  on  the  Temple. 

And  Zerubbabel,  son  of  She'aHfel,  and  Jehoshua\  son 
ofjehosadak,  the  high  priest^  and  all  the  rest  of  the  people, 
hearkened  to  the  voice  of  Jehovah  their  God,  and  to  the 
words  of  Haggai  the  prophet,  as  Jehovah  their  God  had 
sent  him;  and  the  people  feared  before  the  face  of  Jehovah.* 
[And  Haggai,  the  messenger  of  Jehovah,  in  JehovaKs 
mission  to  the  people,  spake,  saying,  I  am  with  you — 
oracle  of  Jehovah ^'^  And  Jehovah  stirred  the  spirit  of 
Zerubbabel,  son  of  She'alttel,  Satrap  ofjudah,  and  the 
spirit  oj  Jehoshud ,  son  of  Jehosadak,  the  high  priest,  and 
the  spirit  of  all  the  rest  of  the  people;  and  they  went  and 
did  work  in  the  House  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  their  God,  on 
the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  sixth  month,  in  the  second 
year  of  Darius  the  king} 

Note  how  the  narrative  emphasises  that  the  new 
energy  was,  as  it  could  not  but  be  from  Haggai's 
unflattering  words,  a  purely  spiritual  result.     It  was 

1  Vol.  I.,  pp.  i62flf. 

2  See  above,  p.  227. 

'  The  LXX.  wrongly  takes  this  last  verse  of  chap.  i.  as  the  first 
half  of  the  first  verse  of  chap.  ii. 


Hag.i.,ii.]    HAGGAI  AND  THE  TEMPLE-BUILDING  241 

the  Spirit  of  Zerubbabel,  and  the  spirit  of  Jehoshua, 
and  the  spirit  of  all  the  rest  of  the  people,  which  was 
stirred — their  conscience  and  radical  force  of  character. 
Not  in  vain  had  the  people  suffered  their  great  dis- 
illusion under  Cyrus,  if  now  their  history  was  to  start 
again  from  sources  so  inward  and  so  pure. 

2.  Courage,  Zerubbabel  I    Courage,  Jehoshua  and 
ALL  THE  People  1  (Chap.  ii.   1-9). 

The  second  occasion  on  which  Haggai  spoke  to  the 
people  was  another  feast  the  same  autumn,  the  seventh 
day  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,^  the  twenty-first  of 
the  seventh  month.  For  nearly  four  weeks  the  work 
on  the  Temple  had  proceeded.  Some  progress  must 
have  been  made,  for  comparisons  became  possible 
between  the  old  Temple  and  the  state  of  this  one. 
Probably  the  outline  and  size  of  the  building  were 
visible.  In  any  case  it  was  enough  to  discourage  the 
builders  with  their  efforts  and  the  means  at  their  dis- 
posal. Haggai's  new  word  is  a  very  simple  one  of 
encouragement.  The  people's  conscience  had  been 
stirred  by  his  first ;  they  needed  now  some  hope.  Con- 
sequently he  appeals  to  what  he  had  ignored  before, 
the  political  possibilities  which  the  present  state  of 
the  world  afforded — always  a  source  of  prophetic 
promise.  But  again  he  makes  his  former  call  upon 
their  own  courage  and  resources.  The  Hebrew  text 
contains  a  reference  to  the  Exodus  which  would  be 
appropriate  to  a  discourse  dehvered  during  the  Feast 
of  Tabernacles,  but  it  is  not  found  in  the  Septuagint, 
and  is  so  impossible  to  construe  that  it  has  been  justly 
suspected  as  a  gloss,  inserted  by  some  later  hand,  only 

'  Lev.  xxiii.  34,  36,  40-42. 

VOL.  n.  16 


242  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

because   the   passage    had    to    do    with    the    Feast   of 
Tabernacles. 

In  the  seventh  month,  on  the  twenty-first  day  of  the 
month,  the  word  of  Jehovah  came  by  ^  Haggai  the  prophet, 
saying : — 

Speak  now  to  Zerubbabel,  son  of  She^altiel,  Satrap 
of  Judah,  and  to  Jehoshud,  son  of  Jehosadak,  the  high 
priest,  and  to  the  rest  of  the  people,  saying :  Who  among 
you  is  left  that  saw  this  House  in  its  former  glory,  and 
how  do  ye  see  it  now  ?  Is  it  not  as  nothing  in  your 
eyes?"^  And  now  courage,^  O  Zerubbabel — oracle  of 
Jehovah — and  courage,  Jehoshud ,  son  of  Jehosadak,  O 
high  priest;  *  and  courage,  all  people  of  the  land  ! — oracle 
of  Jehovah;  and  get  to  work,  for  I  am  with  you — oracle 
of  Jehovah  of  Hosts  ^ — and  My  Spirit  is  standing  in  your 
midst.  Fear  not  I  For  thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts  : 
It  is  but  a  little  while,  and  I  will  shake  the  heavens,  and 
the  earth  and  the  sea  and  the  dry  land ;  and  I  will 
shake  all  nations,  and  the  costly  things  ^  of  all  nations  shall 
come  in,  and  I  will  fill  this  House    with  glory,  saith 

'  By  the  hand  of. 

2  D5\J'»J^2  TNp  -iriD^  N^n.  Literally,  is  not  the  like  of  it  as  nothing 
in  your  eyes  ?  But  that  can  hardly  be  the  meaning.  It  might  be 
equivalent  to  is  it  not,  as  it  stands,  as  nothing  in  your  eyes  ?  But  the 
fact  is  that  in  Hebrew  construction  of  a  simple,  unemphasised  com- 
parison, the  comparing  particle  "2  stands  before  both  objects  compared  : 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  phrase  (Gen.  xliv.  i8)  ny"lEl3  ^1^?  ^?j  ^^^u 
art  as  Pharaoh. 

'  Literally  :  be  strong. 

*  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  high  priest  belongs  to  the  text  or  not. 

^  Here  occurs  the  anacolouthic  clause,  introduced  by  an  ace.  with- 
out a  verb,^  which  is  not  found  in  the  LXX.  and  is  probably  a  gloss 
(see  above,  p.  241)  :  The  promise  which  I  made  with  you  in  your  going 
forth  from  Egypt. 

®  Hebrew  has  singular,  costly  thing  or  desirableness,  fTipn 
(fern,  for  neut.),  but  the  verb  shall  come  is  in  the  plural,  and  the 
LXX.  .has  Tcl  iKXeKrd,  the  choice  things.     See  below,  next  page. 


Hag.i.,ii.]    HAGGAI  AND  THE  TEMPLE-BUILDING  243 

Jehovah  of  Hosts.  Mine  is  the  silver  and  Mine  the  gold 
— oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts.  Greater  shall  the  latter 
glory  of  this  House  be  than  the  former^  saith  Jehovah 
of  Hosts,  and  in  this  place  will  I  give  peace  ^ — oracle 
of  Jehovah  of  Hosts. 

From  the  earliest  times  this  passage,  by  the 
majority  of  the  Christian  Church,  has  been  inter- 
preted of  the  coming  of  Christ.  The  Vulgate  renders 
ver.  yby  Et  veniet  Desideratus  cunctis  gentibus,  and  so 
a  large  number  of  the  Latin  Fathers,  who  are  followed 
by  Luther,  Der  Trost  aller  Heiden,  and  by  our  own 
Authorised  Version,  And  the  Desire  of  all  nations  shall 
come.  This  was  not  contrary  to  Jewish  tradition,  for 
Rabbi  Akiba  had  defined  the  clause  of  the  Messiah, 
and  Jerome  received  the  interpretation  from  his  Jewish 
instructors.  In  itself  the  noun,  as  pointed  in  the 
Massoretic  text,  means  longing  or  object  of  longing.^ 
But  the  verb  which  goes  with  it  is  in  the  plural,  and 
by  a  change  of  points  the  noun  itself  may  be  read  as 
a  plural.^  That  this  was  the  original  reading  is  made 
extremely  probable  by  the  fact  that  it  lay  before  the 
translators  of  the  Septuagint,  who  render :   the  picked^ 


'  The  LXX.  add  a  parallel  clause  koI  tlp-qprjp  \pvxv^  ^^s  Trepnroiriaiv 
wavrt  Tip  ktI^ovtl  tov  dvacTTTJa-ai  rbv  vahv  tovtov,  which  would  read  in 
Hebrew     n-TH      h'2'^?ir\     DOipS     nD^n-'pS     JlVn'?   C^D:)     ni^C^I.     On 

V  -  T    ••  -  ••   '   :  ••     -       T  -  :  v."  -:  -   :* 

nvn  Wellhausen  cites  I  Chron.  xi.  8,  =  restore  or  revive. 

^  rrnpn  =  longing,  2  Chron,  xxi.  2,  and  object  of  longing, 
Dan.  xi.  37.  It  is  the  feminine  or  neuter,  and  might  be  rendered  as 
a  collective,  desirable  things.  Pusey  cites  Cicero  s  address  to  his  wife  : 
Valete,  mea  desideria,  valete  {Ep.  ad  Famil.,  xiv.  2  fin.). 

3  nipn^  plural  feminine  of  pass,  part.,  as  in  Gen,  xxvii.  15,  where 
it  is  an  adjective,  but  used  as  a  noun  =  precious  things,  Dan.  xi. 
38,  43,  which  use  meets  the  objection  of  Pusey,  in  loco,  where  he 
wrongly  maintains  that  precious  things,  if  intended,  must  have  been 
expressed  by  ^l^DD. 


244  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

or  chosen,  things  of  the  nations}  So  the  old  Italic 
version  :  Et  venient  omnia  electa  gentium}  Moreover 
this  meaning  suits  the  context,  as  the  other  does 
not.  The  next  verse  mentions  silver  and  gold.  "  We 
may  understand  what  he  says,"  writes  Calvin,  "of 
Christ ;  we  indeed  know  that  Christ  was  the  expecta- 
tion of  the  whole  world  ;  .  .  .  but  as  it  immediately 
follows,  Mine  is  the  silver  and  Mine  is  the  gold,  the 
more  simple  meaning  is  that  which  I  first  stated  :  that 
the  nations  would  come,  bringing  with  them  all  their 
riches,  that  they  might  offer  themselves  and  all  their 
possessions  a  sacrifice  to  God."  ^ 

3.  The  Power  of  the  Unclean  (Chap.  ii.   10-19). 

Haggai's  third  address  to  the  people  is  based  on  a 
deliverance  which  he  seeks  from  the  priests.  The 
Book  of  Deuteronomy  had  provided  that,  in  all  difficult 
cases  not  settled  by  its  own  code,  the  people  shall 
seek  a  deliverance  or  Torah  from  the  priests,  and  shall 
observe  to  do  according  to  the  deliverance  which  the  priests 
deliver  to  thee}  Both  noun  and  verb,  which  ma}^  be 
thus  literally  translated,  are  also  used  for  the  com- 
pleted and  canonical  Law  in  Israel,  and  they  signify 
that  in  the  time  of  the  composition  of  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy  that  Law  was  still  regarded  as  in  process 
of  growth.     So  it  is   also  in  the  time  of  Haggai :  he 

*  ^^€1  rh  iKXeKTo,  irdvTWV  rdv  idvuv,  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  takes 
it  as  elect  persons  of  all  nations,  to  which  a  few  moderns  adhere. 

^  Augustini  Contra  Donatistas  post  Collationem,  cap.  xx.  30  (Migne, 
Latin  Patrology,  XLIII.,  p.  671). 
'  Calvin,  Cotnm.  in  Haggai,  ii.  6-9. 

*  Deut.  xvii.  8  ff. :  "Jl-nr  1?J'N  n"j'"inn  ^3-71;.  Compare  the  expres- 
sion ni'lD  |ni3,  2  Chron.  xv.  3,  and  the  duties  of  the  teaching 
priests  assigned  by  the  Chronicler  (2  Chron,  xvii.  7-9)  to  the  days  of 
Jehoshaphat. 


Hag.i.,ii.]    HAGGAI  AND  THE  TEMPLE-BUILDING  245 

does  not  consult  a  code  of  laws,  nor  asks  the  priests 
what  the  canon  says,  as,  for  instance,  our  Lord  does 
with  the  question,  how  readiest  thou  ?  But  he  begs  them 
to  give  him  a  Torah  or  deliverance^  based  of  course 
upon  existing  custom,  but  not  yet  committed  to  writing.^ 
For  the  history  of  the  Law  in  Israel  this  is,  therefore, 
a  passage  of  great  interest. 

On  the  twenty-fourth  of  the  ninth  month^  in  the  second 
year  of  Darius^  the  word  of  Jehovah  came  to  ^  Haggai 
the  prophet^  saying :  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  Ask, 
I  pray,  of  the  priests  a  deliverance,^  saying : — 

If  a  man  be  carrying  flesh  that  is  holy  in  the  skirt  of 
his  robe,  and  with  his  skirt  touch  bread  or  pottage  or  wine 
or  oil  or  any  food,  shall  the  latter  become  holy  ?  And 
the  priests  gave  answer  and  said.  No  !  And  Haggai 
said,  If  one  unclean  by  a  corpse  ^  touch  any  of  these,  shall 
the  latter  become  unclean  ?  And  the  priests  gave  answer 
and  said.  It  shall.  That  is  to  say,  holiness  which 
passed  from  the  source  to  an  object  immediately  in 
touch  v/ith  the  latter  did  not  spread  further;  but 
pollution  infected  not  only  the  person  who  came  into 


^  Note  that  it  is  not  the  Torah,  but  a  Torah. 

-  The  nearest  passage  to  the  deliverance  of  the  priests  to  Haggai  is 
Lev.  vi.  20,  21  (Heb.),  27,  28  (Eng.).  This  is  part  of  the  Priestly  Code 
not  promulgated  till  445  b.c,  but  based,  of  course,  on  long  extant 
custom,  some  of  it  very  ancient.  Everything  that  touches  the  flesh  (of 
the  sin-offering,  which  is  holy)  shall  be  holy—V'i\\yi  the  verb  used  by 
the  priests  in  their  answer  to  Haggai — and  when  any  of  its  blood  has 
been  sprinkled  on  a  garment,  that  whereon  it  was  sprinkled  shall  be 
■washed  in  a  holy  place.  The  earthen  vessel  wherein  it  has  been  boiled 
shall  be  broken,  and  if  it  has  been  boiled  in  a  brazen  vessel,  this  shall  be 
scoured  and  rinsed  with  water. 

^  So  several  old  edd.  and  many  codd.,  and  adopted  by  Baer  (see 
his  note  in  loco)  in  his  text.  But  most  of  the  edd.  of  the  Massoretic 
text  read  T'3i  after  Cod.  Hill.  For  the  importance  of  the  question 
see  above,  p.  227.  *  Torah.  *  {J'DJ   XDri 


246  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

contact  with  it,  but  whatever  he  touched.^  '•  The  flesh 
of  the  sacrifice  hallowed  whatever  it  should  touch,  but 
not  further ;  ^  but  the  human  being  who  was  defiled  by 
touching  a  dead  body,  defiled  all  he  might  touch."  ^ 
And  Haggai  answered  and  said:  So  is  this  people,  and 
so  is  this  nation  before  Me — oracle  of  Jehovah — and  so 
is  all  the  work  of  their  hands,  and  what  they  offer  there — 
at  the  altar  erected  on  its  old  site — is  unclean}  That 
is  to  say,  while  the  Jews  had  expected  their  restored 
ritual  to  make  them  holy  to  the  Lord,  this  had  not 
been  effective,  while,  on  the  contrary,  their  contact 
with  sources  of  pollution  had  thoroughly  polluted  both 
themselves  and  their  labour  and  their  sacrifices.  What 
these  sources  of  pollution  are  is  not  explicitly  stated, 
but  Haggai,  from  his  other  messages,  can  only  mean, 
either  the  people's  want  of  energy  in  building  the 
Temple,  or  the  unbuilt  Temple  itself.  Andree  goes  so 
far  as  to  compare  the  latter  with  the   corpse,  whose 

1  There  does  not  appear  to  be  the  contrast  between  indirect  con- 
tact with  a  holy  thing  and  direct  contact  with  a  polluted  which 
Wellhausen  says  there  is.  In  either  case  the  articles  whose  character 
is  in  question  stand  second  from  the  source  of  holiness  and  pollution 
— the  holy  flesh  and  the  corpse. 

2  See  above,  p.  245,  n.  2. 

3  Pusey,  in  loco. 

^  The  LXX.  have  here  found  inserted  three  other  clauses  :  %veKiv 
rdv  \r)iJ,fj,dTwv  avrdv  tCjv  dpdpivQv,  ddwrjOrjaovTai  dird  irpoadjirov  ttqpcov 
avT<x>v,  Kal  €/xL(xetT€  iv  irvXais  iX^yxovras.  The  first  clause  is  a  mis- 
reading (Wellhausen),  im  Unhif?  ]V1  for  ^m  Ump}^  \^l^  be- 
cause ye  take  a  bribe,  and  goes  well  with  the  third  clause,  modified 
from  Amos  V.  lo:  H'^piD  l?:'^?  "I^^?^,  they  hate  him  zvho  reproves  in 
the  gate.  These  may  have  been  inserted  into  the  Hebrew  text  by 
some  one  puzzled  to  know  what  the  source  of  the  people's  pollution 
was,  and  who  absurdly  found  it  in  sins  which  in  Haggai's  time  it 
was  impossible  to  impute  to  them.  The  middle  clause,  '•J^D  W.T^) 
DrrillVV  they  vex  themselves  with  their  labours,  is  suitable  to  the  sense 
of  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  verse,  as  Wellhausen  points  out,  but 
besides  gives  a  connection  with  what  follows. 


Hag.i.,ii.]    HAGGAI  AND  THE  TEMPLE-BUILDING  247 


touch,  according  to  the  priests,  spreads  infection  through 
more  than  one  degree.  In  any  case  Haggai  means 
to  illustrate  and  enforce  the  building  of  the  Temple 
without  delay ;  and  meantime  he  takes  one  instance  of 
the  effect  he  has  already  spoken  of,  the  work  of  their 
hands,  and  shows  how  it  has  been  spoilt  by  their 
neglect  and  delay.  And  now,  I  pray,  set  your  hearts 
backward  from  to-day,^  before  stone  was  laid  upon  stone 
in  the  Temple  of  Jehovah  .•  .  .  .  ^  when  one  came  to  a 
heap  of  grain  of  twenty  measures,  and  it  had  become 
ten,  or  went  to  the  winevat  to  draw  fifty  measures,^  and 
it  had  become  twenty.  I  smote  you  with  blasting  and  with 
withering,'^  and  with  hail  all  the  work  of  your  hands, 
and  .  .  .  ^ — oracle  of  Jehovah.  Lay  now  your  hearts 
on  the  time  before  to-day  ®  {the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the 

^  From  this  day  and  onward. 

^  Heb.  literally  since  they  were.     A.V.  since  those  days  were. 

^  Winevat,  IP^^  is  distinguished  from  winepress,  T\^^  in  Josh.  ix.  13, 
and  is  translated  by  the  Greek  virdK-qvLOv  Mark  xii.  I,  \7}vbv  Matt.  xxi.  33, 
dug  a  pit  for  the  winepress]  but  the  name  is  applied  sometimes  to  the 
whole  winepress — Hosea  ix.  2  etc.,  Job  xxiv.  1 1,  to  tread  the  winepress. 
The  word  translated  measures,  as  in  LXX.  /xeTprjrds,  is  ni-IQ^  and 
that  is  properly  the  vat  in  which  the  grapes  were  trodden  (Isa.  Ixiii.  3), 
but  here  it  can  scarcely  mean  fifty  vat/uls,  but  must  refer  to  some 
smaller  measure — cask  ? 

*  See  above,  pp.  228  f.,  n.  I. 

*  The  words  omitted  cannot  be  construed  in  the  Hebrew, 
hif:  D5nX"P^?1,  llterally  and  not  you  (ace.)  to  Me.  Hitzig,  etc., 
propose  to  read  DDHK  and  render  there  was  none  with  you  who  turned 
to  Me.  Others  propose  D5^''i<j  as  if  none  of  you  turned  to  Me.  Others 
retain  DDHNI  and  render  as  for  you.  The  versions  LXX.  Syr., 
Vulg.  jy^  will'  not  return  or  did  not  return  to  Me,  reading  perhaps 
for  DDn^t  |\n:,  DnnK>  N^,  which  is  found  in  Amos  iv.  9,  of  which 
the  rest  of  the  verse  is  an  echo.  Wellhausen  deletes  the  whole 
verse  as  a  gloss.  It  is  certainly  suspicious,  and  remarkable  in  that 
the  LXX.  text  has  already  introduced  two  citations  from  Amos.  See 
above  on  ver.  14. 

*  Heb.  from  this  day  backwards. 


248  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

ninth  month  ^),  before  the  day  of  the  foundation  of  the 
Temple  of  Jehovah''" — lay  your  hearts  to  that  time  !     Is 

*  The  date  Wellhausen  thinks  was  added  by  a  later  hand. 

"^  This  is  the  ambiguous  clause  on  different  interpretations  of  which 
so  much  has  been  founded  :  nTn\-b5\n  ID^"" I^N  D"f>n-}p'?.  Does 
this  clause,  in  simple  parallel  to  the  previous  one,  describe  the  day  no 
which  the  prophet  was  speaking,  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  ninth 
month,  the  terminus  a  quo  of  the  people's  retrospect  ?  In  that  case 
Haggai  regards  the  foundation-stone  of  the  Temple  as  laid  on  the 
twenty-fourth  day  of  the  ninth  month  520  B.C.,  and  does  not  know, 
or  at  least  ignores,  any  previous  laying  of  a  foundation-stone.  So 
Kuenen,  Kosters,  Andrde,  etc.  Or  does  }DP  signify  up  to  the  time 
the  foundation-stone  was  laid,  and  state  a  terminus  ad  quern  for  the 
people's  retrospect  ?  So  Ewald  and  others,  who  therefore  find  in 
the  verse  a  proof  that  Haggai  knew  of  an  earlier  laying  of  the 
foundation-stone.  But  that  \'ob  is  ever  used  for  in  cannot  be 
proved,  and  indeed  is  disproved  by  Jer.  vii.  7,  where  it  occurs  in  con- 
trast to  *TV1.  Van  Hoonacker  finds  the  same,  but  in  a  more  subtle  trans- 
lation of  1^7.  \'0,  he  says,  is  never  used  except  of  a  date  distant  from 
the  speaker  or  writer  of  it ;  \'Ch  (if  I  understand  him  aright)  refers 
therefore  to  a  date  previous  to  Haggai  to  which  the  people's  thoughts 
are  directed  by  the  7  and  then  brought  back  from  it  to  the  date  at 
which  he  was  speaking  by  means  of  the  |D  :  "la  preposition  7  sig- 
nifie  la  direction  de  I'esprit  vers  une  epoque  du  passe  d'ou  il  est 
ramene  par  la  preposition  |D."  But  surely  |D  can  be  used  (as 
indeed  Haggai  has  just  used  it)  to  signify  extension  backwards  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  speaker ;  and  although  in  the  passages  cited 
by  Van  Hoonacker  of  the  use  of  |D7  it  always  refers  to  a  past 
date — Deut.  ix.  7,  Judg.  xix.  30,  2  Sam.  vi.  1 1,  Jer.  vii.  7  and  25 — 
still,  as  it  is  there  nothing  but  a  pleonastic  form  for  \0,  it  surely 
might  be  employed  as  \0  is  sometimes  employed  for  departure  from 
the  present  backwards.  Nor  in  any  case  is  it  used  to  express  what 
Van  Hoonacker  seeks  to  draw  from  it  here,  the  idea  of  direction  of 
the  mind  to  a  past  event  and  then  an  immediate  return  from  that. 
Had  Haggai  wished  to  express  that  idea  he  would  have  phrased  it 
thus  :  nrn  DVn  iyi  mn>  'pDM  nO^  "IE^K  Drn  p"?  (as  Kosters 
remarks).  Besides,  as  Kosters  has  pointed  out  (pp.  7  ff.  of  the 
Germ,  trans,  of  Het  Herstel,  etc.),  even  if  Van  Hoonacker's  translation 
of  \'Ch  were  correct,  the  context  would  show  that  it  might  refer 
only  to  a  laying  of  the  foundation-stone  since  Haggai's  first  address 
to  the  people,  and  therefore  the  question  of  an  earlier  foundation- 
stone  under  Cyrus  would  remain  unsolved.  Consequently  Haggai 
ii.  18  cannot  be  quoted  as  a  proof  of  the  latter.     See  above,  p.  216. 


Hag.i.,ii.]    HAGGAI  AND  THE  TEMPLE-BUILDING  249 

there  yet  any  seed  in  the  barn?^  And  as  yet '^  the 
vine,  the  fig-tree,  the  pomegranate  and  the  olive  have  not 
borne  fruit.     FVom  this  day  I  will  bless  thee. 

This  then  is  the  substance  of  the  whole  message.    On 
the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  ninth  month,  somewhere 
in    our  December,    the   Jews    had   been    discouraged 
that  their  attempts  to  build  the  Temple,  begun  three 
months    before,^    had    not    turned    the   tide   of  their 
misfortunes  and  produced  prosperity  in  their  agricul- 
ture.    Haggai  tells  them,  there  is  not  yet  time  for  the 
change   to   work.      If  contact   with  a  holy  thing  has 
only  a  slight  effect,  but  contact  with  an  unclean  thing 
has   a  much   greater  effect   (verses   11-13),  then,  their 
attempts   to  build    the   Temple   must    have    less    good 
influence  upon  their  condition  than  the  bad  influence  of 
all  their  past  devotion  to  themselves  and  their  secular 
labours.     That   is  why   adversity  still   continues,   but 
courage  I  from  this  day  on  God  will  bless.     The  whole 
message  is,  therefore,  opportune  to  the  date  at  which 
it  was  delivered,  and  comes  naturally  on  the  back  of 
Haggai's  previous  oracles.     Andree's  reason  for  assign- 
ing it  to  another  writer,  on  the  ground  of  its  breaking 
the  connection,  does  not  exist.* 

These  poor  colonists,  in  their  hope  deferred,  were 
learning  the  old  lesson,  which  humanity  finds  so  hard 
to  understand,  that  repentance  and  new-born  zeal  do 
not  immediately  work  a  change  upon  our  material 
condition  ;  but  the  natural  consequences  of  sin  often 
outweigh  the  influence  of  conversion,  and  though 
devoted   to   God   and   very   industrious   we   may  still 

^  Meaning  there  is  none. 

2  niyi  or  iyi  for  lyi,   after  LXX.  Kal  d  ^tl. 

^  The  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  sixth  month,  according  to  chap.  i.  15. 

*  See  above,  p.  228. 


250  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

be  punished  for  a  sinful  past.  Evil  has  an  infectious 
power  greater  than  that  of  holiness.  Its  effects  are 
more  extensive  and  lasting.-^  It  was  no  bit  of  casuistry 
which  Haggai  sought  to  illustrate  by  his  appeal  to  the 
priests  on  the  ceremonial  law,  but  an  ethical  truth 
deeply  embedded  in  human  experience. 

4.  The  Reinvestment  of  Israel's  Hope 
(Chap.  ii.  20-23). 

On  the  same  day  Haggai  published  another  oracle, 
in  which  he  put  the  cUmax  to  his  own  message  by  re- 
investing in  Zerubbabel  the  ancient  hopes  of  his  people. 
When  the  monarchy  fell  the  Messianic  hopes  were 
naturally  no  longer  concentrated  in  the  person  of  a  king ; 
and  the  great  evangelist  of  the  Exile  found  the  elect  and 
anointed  Servant  of  Jehovah  in  the  people  as  a  whole, 
or  in  at  least  the  pious  part  of  them,  with  functions 
not  of  political  government  but  of  moral  influence  and 
instruction  towards  all  the  peoples  of  the  earth.  Yet 
in  the  Exile  Ezekiel  still  predicted  an  individual 
Messiah,  a  son  of  the  house  of  David ;  only  it  is  signi- 
ficant that,  in  his  latest  prophecies  delivered  after  the 
overthrow  of  Jerusalem,  Ezekiel  calls  him  not  king'^ 
any  more,  h\it  prince} 

^  "  For  I  believe  the  devil's  voice 
Sinks  deeper  in  our  ear, 
Than  any  whisper  sent  from  heaven, 
However  sweet  and  clear." 

*  Only  in  xxxiv.  24,  xxxvii.  22,  24. 

^  {^''b'J :  cf.  Skinner,  Ezekiel  (Expositor's  Bible  Series),  pp.  447  fF., 
who,  however,  attributes  the  diminution  of  the  importance  of  the  civil 
head  in  Israel,  not  to  the  feeling  that  he  would  henceforth  always  be 
subject  to  a  foreign  emperor,  but  to  the  conviction  that  in  the  future 
he  will  be  "  overshadowed  by  the  personal  presence  of  Jehovah  in 
the  midst  of   His  people." 


Hag.i.,ii.]    HAGGAI  AND  THE  TEMPLE-BUILDING  251 

After  the  return  of  Sheshbazzar  to  Babylon  this 
position  was  virtually  filled  by  Zerubbabel,  a  grandson 
of  Jehoiakin,  the  second  last  king  of  Judah,  and 
appointed  by  the  Persian  king  Pehah  or  Satrap  of 
Judah.  Him  Haggai  now  formally  names  the  elect 
servant  of  Jehovah.  In  that  overturning  of  the  king- 
doms of  the  world  which  Haggai  had  predicted  two 
months  before,  and  which  he.  now  explains  as  their 
mutual  destruction  by  war,  Jehovah  of  Hosts  will 
make  Zerubbabel  His  signet-ring,  inseparable  from 
Himself  and  the  symbol  of  His  authority. 

And  the  word  of  Jehovah  came  a  second  time  to  ^ 
Haggai  on  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  ninth  month, 
saying:  Speak  to  Zerubbabel,  Satrap  of  Judah,  saying: 
I  am  about  to  shake  the  heavens  and  the  earth^  and  I 
will  overturn  the  thrones  ^  of  kingdoms,  and  will  shatter 
the  power  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  Gentiles^  and  will  over- 
turn chariots  ^  and  their  riders,  and  horses  and  their 
riders  will  come  down,  every  man  by  the  sword  of  his 
brother.  In  that  day — oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts — / 
will  take  Zerubbabel,  son  of  She'altfel,  My  servant — 
oracle  of  Jehovah — and  will  make  him  like  a  signet-ring; 
for  thee  have  I  chosen — oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts. 

The  wars  and  mutual  destruction  of  the  Gentiles,  of 
which  Haggai  speaks,  are  doubtless  those  revolts  of 
races  and  provinces,  which  threatened  to  disrupt  the 
Persian  Empire  upon  the  accession  of  Darius  in  521. 
Persians,  Babylonians,  Medes,  Armenians,  the  Sacse 
and  others  rose  together  or  in  succession.  In  four 
years  Darius   quelled    them    all,   and  reorganised    his 

^  See  above,  p.  227. 

^  LXX.  enlarges  :  and  the  sea  and  the  dry  land. 

'  Heb.  sing,  collect.     LXX.  plural. 

*  Again  a  sing.  coll. 


252  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

empire  before  the  Jews  finished  their  Temple.  Like 
all  the  Syrian  governors,  Zerubbabel  remained  his  poor 
lieutenant  and  submissive  tributary.  History  rolled 
westward  into  Europe.  Greek  and  Persian  began  their 
struggle  for  the  control  of  its  future,  and  the  Jews  fell 
into  an  obscurity  and  oblivion  unbroken  for  centuries. 
The  signet-ring  of  Jehovah  was  not  acknowledged  by 
the  world — does  not  seem  even  to  have  challenged  its 
briefest  attention.  But  Haggai  had  at  least  succeeded  in 
asserting  the  Messianic  hope  of  Israel,  always  bafQed, 
never  quenched,  in  this  re-opening  of  her  Hfe.  He  had 
delivered  the  ancient  heritage  of  Israel  to  the  care  of 
the  new  Judaism. 

Haggai's  place  in  the  succession  of  prophecy  ought 
now  to  be  clear  to  us.  The  meagreness  of  his  words 
and  their  crabbed  style,  his  occupation  with  the  con- 
struction of  the  Temple,  his  unfulfilled  hope  in  Zerub- 
babel, his  silence  on  the  great  inheritance  of  tru'th 
delivered  by  his  predecessors,  and  the  absence  from 
his  prophesying  of  all  visions  of  God's  character  and 
all  emphasis  upon  the  ethical  elements  of  religion — 
these  have  moved  some  to  depress  his  value  as  a 
prophet  almost  to  the  vanishing  point.  Nothing  could 
be  more  unjust.  In  his  opening  message  Haggai 
evinced  the  first  indispensable  power  of  the  prophet : 
to  speak  to  the  situation  of  the  moment,  and  to  suc- 
ceed in  getting  men  to  take  up  the  duty  at  their  feet ; 
in  another  message  he  announced  a  great  ethical 
principle  ;  in  his  last  he  conserved  the  Messianic  tra- 
ditions of  his  religion,  and  though  not  less  disappointed 
than  Isaiah  in  the  personality  to  whom  he  looked  for 
their  fulfilment,  he  succeeded  in  passing  on  their  hope 
undiminished  to  future  ages. 


ZECHARIAH 

il.-VIII.) 


253 


Not  by  might,  and  not  by  force,  but  by  My  Spirit,  saith  Jehovah  of 
Hosts. 

Be  not  afraid,  strengthen  your  hands  !  Speak  truth,  every  man  to  his 
neighbour;  truth  and  wholesome  judgment  judge  ye  in  your  gates,  and 
in  your  hearts  plan  no  evil  for  each  other,  nor  take  pleasure  in  false 
swearing,  for  all  these  things  do  I  hate — oracle  of  Jehovah. 


254 


CHAPTER   XIX 

THE  BOOK  OF  ZECHARIAH  {I. —VIII.) 

THE  Book  of  Zechariah,  consisting  of  fourteen 
chapters,  falls  clearly  into  two  divisions  :  First, 
chaps,  i. — viii.,  ascribed  to  Zechariah  himself  and 
full  of  evidence  for  their  authenticity ;  Second, 
chaps,  ix. — xiv.,  which  are  not  ascribed  to  Zechariah, 
and  deal  with  conditions  different  from  those  upon 
v^^hich  he  worked.  The  full  discussion  of  the  date  and 
character  of  this  second  section  we  shall  reserve  till  we 
reach  the  period  at  which  we  believe  it  to  have  been 
written.  Here  an  introduction  is  necessary  only  to 
chaps,  i. — viii. 

These  chapters  may  be  divided  into  five  sections. 

I.  Chap.  i.  1-6. — A  Word  of  Jehovah  which  came  to  Zechariah  in  the 
eighth  month  of  the  second  year  of  Darius,  that  is  in  November  520 
B.C.,  or  between  the  second  and  the  third  oracles  of  Haggai.*  In  this 
the  prophet's  place  is  affirmed  in  the  succession  of  the  prophets  of 
Israel.  The  ancient  prophets  are  gone,  but  their  predictions  have 
been  fulfilled  in  the  calamities  of  the  Exile,  and  God's  Word  abides 
for  ever. 

II.  Chap.  i.  7 — vi.  9. — A  Word  of  Jehovah  which  came  to  Zechariah 
on  the  twenty-fourth  of  the  eleventh  month  of  the  same  year,  that 
is  January  or  February  519,  and  which  he  reproduces  in  the  form  of 
eight  Visions  by  night,  (i)  The  Vision  of  the  Four  Horsemen  :  God's 
new  mercies  to  Jerusalem  (chap.  i.  7- 1 7).  (2)  The  Vision  of  the  Four 
Horns,  or  Powers  of  the  World,  and  the  Four  Smiths,  who  smite 
them  down  (ii.  1-4  Heb.,  but  in  the  Septuagint  and  in  the  English 

'  See  above,  pp.  225  if. 
255 


256  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Version  i.  1 8-21).  (3)  The  Vision  of  the  Man  with  the  Measuring 
Rope  :  Jerusalem  shall  be  rebuilt,  no  longer  as  a  narrow  fortress,  but 
spread  abroad  for  the  multitude  of  her  population  (chap.  ii.  5-9  Heb., 
ii.  1-5  LXX.  and  Eng.).  To  this  Vision  is  appended  a  lyric  piece 
of  probably  older  date  calling  upon  the  Jews  in  Babylon  to  return, 
and  celebrating  the  joining  of  many  peoples  to  Jehovah,  now  that 
He  takes  up  again  His  habitation  in  Jerusalem  (chap.  ii.  10-17  Heb., 
ii.  6-13  LXX.  and  Eng.).  (4)  The  Vision  of  Joshua,  the  High  Priest, 
and  the  Satan  or  Accuser :  the  Satan  is  rebuked,  and  Joshua  is 
cleansed  from  his  foul  garments  and  clothed  with  a  new  turban  and 
festal  apparel ;  the  land  is  purged  and  secure  (chap,  iii.).  (5)  The 
Vision  of  the  Seven-Branched  Lamp  and  the  Two  Olive-Trees 
(chap.  iv.  i-ba,  106- 14)  :  into  the  centre  of  this  has  been  inserted 
a  Word  of  Jehovah  to  Zerubbabel  (vv.  66-ioa),  which  interrupts 
the  Vision  and  ought  probably  to  come  at  the  close  of  it.  (6)  The 
Vision  of  the  Flying  Book  :  it  is  the  curse  of  the  land,  which  is  being 
removed,  but  after  destroying  the  houses  of  the  wicked  (chap.  v.  I-4). 
(7)  The  Vision  of  the  Bushel  and  the  Woman  :  that  is  the  guilt  of 
the  land  and  its  wickedness  ;  they  are  carried  off  and  planted  in  the 
land  of  Shinar  (v.  5-1 1).  (8)  The  Vision  of  the  Four  Chariots  :  they 
go  forth  from  the  Lord  of  all  the  earth,  to  traverse  the  earth  and 
bring  His  Spirit,  or  anger,  to  bear  on  the  North  country  (chap.  vi.  1-8). 

III.  Chap.  vi.  9-15.— A  Word  of  Jehovah,  undated  (unless  it  is  to 
be  taken  as  of  the  same  date  as  the  Visions  to  which  it  is  attached), 
giving  directions  as  to  the  gifts  sent  to  the  community  at  Jerusalem 
from  the  Babylonian  Jews.  A  crown  is  to  be  made  from  the  silver 
and  gold,  and,  according  to  the  text,  placed  upon  the  head  of  Joshua. 
But,  as  we  shall  see,i  the  text  gives  evident  signs  of  having  been 
altered  in  the  interest  of  the  High  Priest ;  and  probably  the  crown 
was  meant  for  Zerubbabel,  at  whose  right  hand  the  priest  is  to  stand, 
and  there  shall  be  a  counsel  of  peace  between  the  two  of  them.  The 
far-away  shall  come  and  assist  at  the  building  of  the  Temple.  This 
section  breaks  off  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence. 

IV.  Chap.  vii. — The  Word  of  Jehovah  which  came  to  Zechariah  on 
the  fourth  of  the  ninth  month  of  the  fourth  year  of  Darius,  that  is 
nearly  two  years  after  the  date  of  the  Visions.  The  Temple  was 
approaching  completion  ;  and  an  inquiry  was  addressed  to  the  priests 
who  were  in  it  and  to  the  prophets  concerning  the  Fasts,  which 
had  been  m.aintained  during  the  Exile,  while  the  Temple  lay  desolate 
(chap.  vii.  1-3).  This  inquiry  drew  from  Zechariah  a  historical 
explanation  of  how  the  Fasts  arose  (chap.  vii.  4- 14). 

V.  Chap.    viii. — Ten    short    undated    oracles,    each  introduced  by 

1  Below,  p.  308. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ZECHARIAH  {I.-VIII.)  257 

the  same  formula,  Thtts  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  and  summarising  all 
Zechariah's  teaching  since  before  the  Temple  began  up  to  the  ques- 
tion of  the  cessation  of  the  Fasts  upon  its  completion — with  promises 
for  the  future.  (i)  A  Word  affirming  Jehovah's  new  zeal  for 
Jerusalem  and  His  Return  to  her  (vv.  i,  2).  (2)  Another  of  the 
same  (ver.  3).  (3)  A  Word  promising  fulness  of  old  folk  and 
children  in  her  streets  (vv.  4,  5).  (4)  A  Word  affirming  that 
nothing  is  too  wonderful  for  Jehovah  (ver.  6).  (5)  A  Word  promis- 
ing the  return  of  the  people  from  east  and  west  (vv.  7,  8). 
(6  and  7)  Two  Words  contrasting,  in  terms  similar  to  Haggai  i.,  the 
poverty  of  the  people  before  the  foundation  of  the  Temple  with  their 
new  prosperity  :  from  a  curse  Israel  shall  become  a  blessing.  This 
is  due  to  God's  anger  having  changed  into  a  purpose  of  grace  to 
Jerusalem.  But  the  people  themselves  must  do  truth  and  justice, 
ceasing  from  perjury  and  thoughts  of  evil  against  each  other 
(vv.  9-17).  (8)  A  Word  which  recurs  to  the  question  of  Fasting, 
and  commands  that  the  four  great  Fasts,  instituted  to  commemorate 
the  siege  and  overthrow  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  murder  of  Gedaliah, 
be  changed  to  joy  and  gladness  (vv.  18,  19).  (9)  A  Word  pre- 
dicting the  coming  of  the  Gentiles  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah  at 
Jerusalem  (vv.  20-22).     (lo)  Another  of  the  same  (ver.  23). 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that,  apart  from  the  few 
interpolations  noted,  these  eight  chapters  are  genuine 
prophecies  of  Zechariah,  who  is  mentioned  in  the  Book 
of  Ezra  as  the  colleague  of  Haggai,  and  contemporary 
of  Zerubbabel  and  Joshua  at  the  time  of  the  rebuild- 
ing of  the  Temple.^  Like  the  oracles  of  Haggai,  these 
prophecies  are  dated  according  to  the  years  of  Darius 
the  king,  from  his  second  year  to  his  fourth.  Al- 
though they  may  contain  some  of  the  exhortations  to 
build  the  Temple,  which  the  Book  of  Ezra  informs  us 
that  Zechariah  made  along  with  Haggai,  the  most  of 
them  presuppose  progress  in  the  work,  and  seek 
to  assist  it  by  historical  retrospect  and  by  glowing 
hopes  of  the  Messianic  effects  of  its  completion.  Their 
allusions  suit   exactly   the   years   to   which   they   are 

*  Ezra  V.  i,  vi.  14. 
VOL.  II.  I^ 


258  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

assigned.  Darius  is  king.  The  Exile  has  lasted  about 
seventy  years.^  Numbers  of  Jews  remain  in  Babylon,^ 
and  are  scattered  over  the  rest  of  the  world.^  The 
community  at  Jerusalem  is  small  and  weak  :  it  is  the 
mere  colony  of  young  men  and  men  in  middle  life  who 
came  to  it  from  Babylon  ;  there  are  few  children  and 
old  folk.*  Joshua  and  Zerubbabel  are  the  heads  of 
the  community,  and  the  pledges  for  its  future.^  The 
exact  conditions  are  recalled  as  recent  which  Haggai 
spoke  of  a  few  years  before.®  Moreover,  there  is  a 
steady  and  orderly  progress  throughout  the  prophecies, 
in  harmony  with  the  successive  dates  at  which  they 
were  delivered.  In  November  520  they  begin  with  a 
cry  to  repentance  and  lessons  drawn  from  the  past  of 
prophecy.^  In  January  519  Temple  and  City  are  still 
to  be  built.^  Zerubbabel  has  laid  the  foundation ;  the 
completion  is  yet  future.^  The  prophet's  duty  is  to 
quiet  the  people's  apprehensions  about  the  state  of  the 
world,^^  to  provoke  their  zeal,^^  give  them  confidence 
in  their  great  men,^^  and,  above  all,  assure  them  that 
God  is  returned  to  them  ^^  and  their  sin  pardoned.^* 
But  in  December  518  the  Temple  is  so  far  built 
that  the  priests  are  said  to  belong  to  it ;  ^^  there  is  no 

*  i.  12,  vii.  5  :  reckoning  in  round  numbers  from  590,  midway  between 
the  two  Exiles  of  597  and  586,  that  brings  us  to  about  520,  the  second 
year  of  Darius. 

=■  ii.  6  (Eng.,  Heb.  10).  On  the  question  whether  the  Book  of 
Zechariah  gives  no  evidence  of  a  previous  Return  from  Babylon  see 
above,  pp.  208  ff. 


^  viii.  7,  etc. 
'  viii.  4,  5. 

*  iii.  I -10,  iv.  6-10,  vi.  ii  ff. 
^  viii.  9,  10. 

'  i.  1-6. 
«  i.  7.17. 

•  iv,  6-10. 


i.  7-21  (Eng.,  Heb.  i.  7 — ii.  4). 

iv.  6  ff. 

iii.,  iv. 

i.  16. 

v. 

vii.  3. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ZECHARIAH  {I.-VIII.)  259 

occasion  for  continuing  the  fasts  of  the  Exile,^  the 
future  has  opened  and  the  horizon  is  bright  with 
the  Messianic  hopes. ^  Most  of  all,  it  is  felt  that 
the  hard  struggle  with  the  forces  of  nature  is  over, 
and  the  people  are  exhorted  to  the  virtues  of  the 
civic  life.^  They  have  time  to  lift  their  eyes  from 
their  work  and  see  the  nations  coming  from  afar  to 
Jerusalem.* 

These  features  leave  no  room  for  doubt  that  the 
great  bulk  of  the  first  eight  chapters  of  the  Book 
of  Zechariah  are  by  the  prophet  himself,  and  from  the 
years  to  which  he  assigns  them,  November  520  to 
December  518.     The  point  requires  no  argument. 

There  are,  however,  three  passages  which  provoke 
further  examination — two  of  them  because  of  the  signs 
they  bear  of  an  earlier  date,  and  one  because  of  the 
alteration  it  has  suffered  in  the  interests  of  a  later  day 
in  Israel's  history. 

The  lyric  passage  which  is  appended  to  the  Second 
Vision  (chap,  ii,  10-17  Heb.,  6-13  LXX.  and  Eng.) 
suggests  questions  by  its  singularity  :  there  is  no  other 
such  among  the  Visions.  But  in  addition  to  this  it 
speaks  not  only  of  the  Return  from  Babylon  as  still 
future  ^ — this  might  still  be  said  after  the  First  Return 
of  the  exiles  in  536  "^ — but  it  differs  from  the  language 
of  all  the  Visions  proper  in  describing  the  return  of 
Jehovah  Himself  to  Zion  as  still  future.  The  whole, 
too,  has  the  ring  of  the  great  odes  in  Isaiah  xl. — Iv., 
and  seems  to  reflect  the  same  situation,  upon  the  eve 

*  vii.  1-7,  \dii.  18,  19.  ^  viii.  16,  17. 

2  viii.  20-23.  ■*  viii.  20-23. 

5  ii.  10  f.  Heb.,  6  f.  LXX.  and  Eng. 

®  Though  the  expression  /  have  scattered  you  to  the  four  winds  of 
heaven  seems  to  imply  the  Exile  before  any  return. 


26o  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

of  Cyrus'  conquest  of  Babylon.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  we  have  here  inserted  in  Zechariah's  Visions 
a  song  of  twenty  years  earlier,  but  we  must  confess 
inability  to  decide  whether  it  was  adopted  by  Zechariah 
himself  or  added  by  a  later  hand.^ 

Again,  there  are  the  two  passages  called  the  Word 
of  Jehovah  to  Zerubbabel,  chap.  iv.  6b-ioa  ;  and  the 
Word  of  Jehovah  concerning  the  gifts  which  came  to 
Jerusalem  from  the  Jews  in  Babylon,  chap.  vi.  9-15. 
The  first,  as  Wellhausen  has  shown,^  is  clearly  out  of 
place  ;  it  disturbs  the  narrative  of  the  Vision,  and  is  to 
be  put  at  the  end  of  the  latter.  The  second  is  undated, 
and  separate  from  the  Visions.  The  second  plainly 
affirms  that  the  building  of  the  Temple  is  still  future. 
The  man  whose  name  is  Branch  or  Shoot  is  designated  : 
and  he  shall  build  the  Temple  of  Jehovah.  The  first  is 
in  the  same  temper  as  the  first  two  oracks  of  Haggai. 
It  is  possible  then  that  these  two  passages  are  not, 
like  the  Visions  with  which  they  are  taken,  to  be 
dated  from  519,  but  represent  that  still  earher  pro- 
phesying of  Zechariah  with  which  we  are  told  he 
assisted  Haggai  in  instigating  the  people  to  begin  to 
build  the  Temple. 

The  style  of  the  prophet  Zechariah  betrays  special 
features  almost  only  in  the  narrative  of  the  Visions. 
Outside  these  his  language  is  simple,  direct  and  pure, 
as  it  could  not  but  be,  considering  how  much  of  it  is 
drawn   from,   or   modelled  upon,   the  older  prophets,^ 

*  For  the  bearing  of  this  on  Kosters'  theory  of  the  Return  see 
pp.  211  f. 

2  See  below,  p.  300. 

3  Outside  the  Visions  the  prophecies  contain  these  echoes  or 
repetitions  of  earlier  writers:  chap.  i.  1-6  quotes  the  constant  refrain 


THE  BOOK  OF  ZECHARIAH  {I. -VI II.)  261 

and  chiefly  Hosea  and  Jeremiah.  Only  one  or  two 
lapses  into  a  careless  and  degenerate  dialect  show  us 
how  the  prophet  might  have  written,  had  he  not  been 
sustained  by  the  music  of  the  classical  periods  of  the 
language.^ 

This  directness  and  pith  is  not  shared  by  the 
language  in  which  the  Visions  are  narrated.^  Here  the 
style  is  involved  and  redundant.  The  syntax  is  loose  ; 
there  is  a  frequent  omission  of  the  copula,  and  of  other 
means  by  which,  in  better  Hebrew,  connection  and 
conciseness  are  sustained.  The  formulas,  thus  saith 
and  saying,  are  repeated  to  weariness.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  fair  to  ask,  how  much  of  this  redundancy 
was  due  to  Zechariah  himself?  Take  the  Septuagint 
version.  The  Hebrew  text,  which  it  followed,  not  only 
included  a  number  of  repetitions  of  the  formulas,  and 
of  the  designations  of  the  personages  introduced  into 
the  Visions,  which  do  not  occur  in  the  Massoretic  text,^ 


of  prophetic  preaching  before  the  Exile,  and  in  chap.  vii.  7-^4  (ver.  8 
must  be  deleted)  is  given  a  summary  of  that  preaching  ;  in  chap, 
viii.  ver.  3  echoes  Isa.  i.  21,  26,  city  of  troth,  and  Jer.  xxxi,  23, 
mountain  of  holiness  (there  is  really  no  connection,  as  Kuenen  holds, 
between  ver.  4  and  Isa.  Ixv.  20 ;  it  would  create  more  interesting 
questions  as  to  the  date  of  the  latter  if  there  were)  ;  ver.  8  is  based 
on  Hosea  ii.  15  Heb.,  19  Eng.,  and  Jer.  xxxi.  33;  ver.  12  is  based 
on  Hosea  ii.  21  f.  (Heb.  23  f.);  with  ver.  13  compare  Jer.  xlii.  18, 
a  curse ;  vv.  21  if.  with  Isa.  ii.  3  and  Micah  iv.  2. 

1  E.g.  vii.  5,  >}^  '•iripV  for  'h  OripV  :  cf.  Ewald,  Syntax,  §  3156. 
The  curious  use  of  the  ace.  in  the  following  verse  is  perhaps  only 
apparent ;  part  of  the  text  may  have  fallen  out. 

^  Though  there  are  not  wanting,  of  course,  echoes  here  as  in  the 
other  prophecies  of  older  writings,  e.g.  i.  12,  17. 

^  "IDX/',  saying,  ii.  8  (Gr.  ii.  4)  ;  iv.  5,  And  the  angel  who  spoke  with 
me  said;  i.  17,  cf.  vi.  5.  All  is  inserted  in  i.  Ii,  iii.  9;  lord  in  ii.  2  ; 
of  hosts  {after  fehovah)  viii.  17;  and  there  are  other  instances  of 
palpable  expansion,  e.g.  i.  6,  8,  ii.  4  bis,  6,  viii.  19. 


262  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

but  omitted  some  which  are  found  in  the  Massoretic 
text.-^  These  two  sets  of  phenomena  prove  that  from 
an  early  date  the  copiers  of  the  original  text  of  Zechariah 
must  have  been  busy  in  increasing  its  redundancies. 
Further,  there  are  still  earlier  intrusions  and  expan- 
sions, for  these  are  shared  by  both  the  Hebrew  and 
the  Greek  texts  :  some  of  them  very  natural  efforts  to 
clear  up  the  personages  and  conversations  recorded  in 
the  dreams,^  some  of  them  stupid  mistakes  in  under- 
standing the  drift  of  the  argument.^  There  must  of 
course  have  been  a  certain  amount  of  redundancy  in 
the  original  to  provoke  such  aggravations  of  it,  and  of 
obscurity  or  tortuousness  of  style  to  cause  them  to  be 
deemed  necessary.  But  it  would  be  very  unjust  to 
charge  all  the  faults  of  our  present  text  to  Zechariah 
himself,  especially  when  we  find  such  force  and  sim- 
plicity in  the  passages  outside  the  Visions.  Of  course 
the  involved  and  misty  subjects  of  the  latter  naturally 
forced  upon  the  description  of  them  a  laboriousness 
of  art,  to  which  there  was  no  provocation  in  directly 
exhorting  the  people  to  a  pure  life,  or  in  straight- 
forward predictions  of  the  Messianic  era. 

Beyond  the  corruptions  due  to  these  causes,  the  text 
of  Zechariah  i. — viii.  has  not  suffered  more  than  that 
of  our  other  prophets.  There  are  one  or  two  clerical 
errors ;  *  an  occasional  preposition  or  person  of  a  verb 
needs  to  be  amended.     Here   and  there  the  text  has 


'  E.g.  ii.  2,  iv.  2,  13,  V.  9,  vi.  12  bis,  vii.  8  :  cf.  also  vi.  13. 

-  i.  8  ff.,  iii.  4  ff. :  cf.  also  vi.  3  with  vv.  6  f. 

^  E.g.  (but  this  is  outside  the  Visions)  the  very  flagrant  misunder- 
standing to  which  the  insertion  of  vii.  8  is  due. 

*  v.  6,  DJ^y  for  DJiy  as  in  LXX.,  and  the  last  words  of  v,  11  ; 
perhaps  vi.  lo;  and  almost  certainly  vii.  2a. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ZECHARIAH  {I.-VIIL)  263 

been  disarranged ;  ^  and  as  already  noticed,  there  has 
been  one  serious  alteration  of  the  original.^ 

From  the  foregoing  paragraphs  it  must  be  apparent 
what  help  and  hindrance  in  the  reconstruction  of  the 
text  is  furnished  by  the  Septuagint.  A  list  of  its  variant 
readings  and  of  its  mistranslations  is  appended.^ 

'  Chap.  iv.  On  6a,  106-14  should  immediately  follow,  and  6b-ioa 
come  after  14. 

2  vi.  1 1  flf.     See  below,  pp.  308  f. 

^  Chief  variants:  i.  8,  10;  ii.  15  ;  iii.  4;  iv.  7,  12;  v.  i,  3,  4,  9 ; 
vi.  10,  13;  vii.  3;  viii.  8,  9,  12,  20.  Obvious  mistranslations  or 
misreadings :  ii.  9,  lo,  15,  17;  iii.  4;  iv.  7,  lo;  v.  i,  4,  9;  vi.  10, 
cf.  14 ;  vii.  3. 


CHAPTER    XX 

ZECHARIAH   THE  PROPHET 
Zechariah  i.  1-6,  etc. ;  Ezra  v.  i,  vi.    14 

ZECHARIAH  is  one  of  the  prophets  whose  person- 
aHty  as  distinguished  from  their  message  exerts 
some  degree  of  fascination  on  the  student.  This  is  not 
due,  however,  as  in  the  case  of  Hosea  or  Jeremiah, 
to  the  facts  of  his  life,  for  of  these  we  know  extremely 
little ;  but  to  certain  conflicting  symptoms  of  character 
which  appear  through  his  prophecies. 

His  name  was  a  very  common  one  in  Israel,  Zekher- 
Yah,  Jehovah  remembers}  In  his  own  book  he  is 
described  as  the  son  of  Berekh-  Yah,  the  son  of  Iddo,^  and 
in  the  Aramaic  document  of  the  Book  of  Ezra  as  the 
son  of  Iddo?  Some  have  explained  this  difference  by 
supposing  that  Berekhyah  was  the  actual  father  of  the 
prophet,  but  that  either  he  died  early,  leaving  Zechariah 
to  the  care  of  the  grandfather,  or  else  that  he  was  a 
man  of  no  note,  and  Iddo  was  more  naturally  mentioned 
as  the  head  of  the  family.  There  are  several  instances 
in  the  Old  Testament  of  men  being  called  the  sons  of 
their  grandfathers :  *  as  in  these  cases  the  grandfather 

•  nn^T  ;   LXX.  Zaxaplas. 

-  i.  I  ":''nr}3  n;?in"j|.   ini.  7:  ^5^v■|^  -li^^?.^?. 

3  Ezra  V.  i,  vi.  14  ':    NnV"l3. 

*  Gen.  xxiv.  47,  cf.  xxix.  5;  i  Kings  xix.  16,  cf.  2  Kings  ix.  14,  20. 

264 


Zech.i.i-6]         ZECHARIAH   THE  PROPHET  265 

was  the  reputed  founder  of  the  house,  so  in  that  of 
Zechariah  Iddo  was  the  head  of  his  family  when  it 
came  out  of  Babylon  and  was  anew  planted  in  Jerusa- 
lem. Others,  however,  have  contested  the  genuineness 
of  the  words  son  of  Berekh-Yah,  and  have  traced  their 
insertion  to  a  confusion  of  the  prophet  with  Zechariah 
son  of  Yebherekh-Yahu,  the  contemporary  of  Isaiah.^ 
This  is  precarious,  while  the  other  hypothesis  is  a 
very  natural  one.^  Whichever  be  correct,  the  prophet 
Zechariah  was  a  member  of  the  priestly  family  of  Iddo, 
that  came  up  to  Jerusalem  from  Babylon  under  Cyrus.^ 
The  Book  of  Nehemiah  adds  that  in  the  high-priesthood 
of  Yoyakim,  the  son  of  Joshua,  the  head  of  the  house 
of  Iddo  was  a  Zechariah.*  If  this  be  our  prophet,  then 
he  was  probably  a  young  man  in  520,^  and  had  come 
up  as  a  child  in  the  caravans  from  Babylon.  The 
Aramaic  document  of  the  Book  of  Ezra  ^  assigns  to 
Zechariah  a  share  with  Haggai  in  the  work  of  instigat- 
ing Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua  to  begin  the  Temple.  None 
of  his  oracles  is  dated  previous  to  the  beginning  of  the 
work  in  August  520,  but  we  have  seen  ^  that  among 
those  undated  there  are  one  or  two  which  by  refer- 
ring to  the  building  of  the  Temple  as  still  future  may 

'  Isa,  viii.  2  :  •inp^l^"}3.  This  confusion,  which  existed  in  early 
Jewish  and  Christian  times,  Knobel,  Von  Ortenberg,  Bleek,  Well- 
hausen  and  others  take  to  be  due  to  the  effort  to  find  a  second 
Zechariah  for  the  authorship  of  chaps,  ix.  ff. 

^  So  Vatke,  KOnig  and  many  others.  Marti  prefers  it  (^Der 
Prophet  Sacharja,  p.  58).     See  also  Ryle  on  Ezra  v.  i. 

^  Neh.  xii.  4. 

*  lb.  16. 

*  This  is  not  proved,  as  Pusey,  Konig  {Einl.,  p.  364)  and  others 
think,  by  11^^^  or  young  man,  of  the  Third  Vision  (ii.  8  Heb., 
ii.  4  LXX.  and  Eng.).  Cf.  Wright,  Zechariah  and  his  Prophecies, 
p.  xvi. 

^  V.  I,  vi.  14.  '  Above,  p.  260. 


266  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

contain  some  relics  of  that  first  stage  of  his  ministry. 
From  November  520  we  have  the  first  of  his  dated 
oracles;  his  Visions  followed  in  January  519,  and  his 
last  recorded  prophesying  in  December  518.^ 

These  are  all  the  certain  events  of  Zechariah's 
history.  But  in  the  well-attested  prophecies  he  has 
left  we  discover,  besides  some  obvious  traits  of  char- 
acter, certain  problems  of  style  and  expression  which 
suggest  a  personality  of  more  than  usual  interest. 
Loyalty  to  the  great  voices  of  old,  the  temper  which 
appeals  to  the  experience,  rather  than  to  the  dogmas, 
of  the  past,  the  gift  of  plain  speech  to  his  own  times, 

'  More  than  this  we  do  not  know  of  Zechariah.  The  Jewish  and 
Christian  traditions  of  him  are  as  unfounded  as  those  of  other 
prophets.  According  to  the  Jews  he  was,  of  course,  a  member  of 
the  mythical  Great  Synagogue.  See  above  on  Haggai,  pp.  232  f.  As 
in  the  case  of  the  prophets  we  have  already  treated,  the  Christian 
traditions  of  Zechariah  are  found  in  (Pseud-)Epiphanius,  De  Vitis 
Prophetartim,  Dorotheus,  and  Hesychius,  as  quoted  above,  p.  80. 
They  amount  to  this,  that  Zechariah,  after  predicting  in  Babylon 
the  birth  of  Zerubbabel,  and  to  Cyrus  his  victory  over  Croesus  and 
his  treatment  of  the  Jews,  came  in  his  old  age  to  Jerusalem, 
prophesied,  died  and  was  buried  near  Beit-Jibrin — another  instance 
of  the  curious  relegation  by  Christian  tradition  of  the  birth  and  burial 
places  of  so  many  of  the  prophets  to  that  neighbourhood.  Compare 
Beit-Zakharya,  12  miles  from  Beit-Jibrin.  Hesychius  says  he  was 
born  in  Gilead.  Dorotheus  confuses  him,  as  the  Jews  did,  with 
Zechariah  of  Isa.  viii.   I.     See  above,  p.  265,  n.   I. 

Zechariah  was  certainly  not  the  Zechariah  whom  our  Lord  describes 
as  slain  between  the  Temple  and  the  Altar  (Matt,  xxiii.  35;  Lukexi.  51). 
In  the  former  passage  alone  is  this  Zechariah  called  the  son  of 
Barachiah.  In  the  Evang.  Nazar.  Jerome  read  the  son  of  Yehoyada. 
Both  readings  may  be  insertions.  Actjording  to  2  Chron.  xxiv.  21, 
in  the  reign  of  Joash,  Zechariah,  the  son  of  Yehoyada  the  priest,  was 
stoned  in  the  court  of  the  Temple,  and  according  to  Josephus  (IV. 
WarSf  V.  4),  in  the  year  68  a.d.  Zechariah  son  of  Baruch  was 
assassinated  in  the  Temple  by  two  zealots.  The  latter  murder  may, 
as  Marti  remarks  (pp.  58  f.),  have  led  to  the  insertion  of  Barachiah 
into  Matt,  xxiii.  35. 


Zech.i.  1-6]         ZECHARIAH   THE  PROPHET  267 

a  wistful  anxiety  about  his  reception  as  a  prophet  ^ 
combined  with  the  absence  of  all  ambition  to  be 
original  or  anything  but  the  clear  voice  of  the  lessons 
of  the  past  and  of  the  conscience  of  to-day — these  are 
the  qualities  which  characterise  Zechariah's  orations 
to  the  people.  But  how  to  reconcile  them  with  the 
strained  art  and  obscure  truths  of  the  Visions — it  is 
this  which  invests  with  interest  the  study  of  his 
personality.  We  have  proved  that  the  obscurity  and 
redundancy  of  the  Visions  cannot  all  have  been  due 
to  himself.  Later  hands  have  exaggerated  the  repeti- 
tions and  ravelled  the  processes  of  the  original.  But 
these  gradual  blemishes  have  not  grown  from  nothing : 
the  original  style  must  have  been  sufficiently  involved 
to  provoke  the  interpolations  of  the  scribes,  and  it 
certainly  contained  all  the  weird  and  shifting  apparitions 
which  we  find  so  hard  to  make  clear  to  ourselves. 
The  problem,  therefore,  remains — how  one  who  had 
gift  of  speech,  so  straight  and  clear,  came  to  torture 
and  tangle  his  style ;  how  one  who  presented  with  all 
plainness  the  main  issues  of  his  people's  history  found 
it  laid  upon  him  to  invent,  for  the  further  expression 
of  these,  symbols  so  laboured  and  intricate. 

We  begin  with  the  oracle,  which  opens  his  book  and 
illustrates  those  simple  characteristics  of  the  man  that 
contrast  so  sharply  with  the  temper  of  his  Visions. 

In  the  eighth  month,  in  the  second  year  of  Darius,  the 
word  of  Jehovah  came  to  the  prophet  Zechariah,  son  of 
Berekhyah,  son  of  Iddo^-  saying:  Jehovah  was  very 
wroth  ^  with  your  fathers.  And  thou  shalt  say  unto  them: 
Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts  :  Turn  ye  to  Me — oracle  of 

'  ii.  13,  15;  iv.  9;  vi.  15. 

2  LXX.  'A55w.     See  above,  p.  264. 

'  Heb.  angered  with  anger ;  Gr.  with  great  anger. 


268  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Jehovah  of  Hosts — that  I  may  turn  to  you,  saith  Jehovah 
of  Hosts  !  Be  not  like  your  fathers,  to  whom  the  former 
prophets  preached,  saying :  ^'  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts, 
Turn  now  from  your  evil  ways  and  from  ^  your  evil 
deeds,"  but  they  hearkened  not,  and  paid  no  attention  to 
Me — oracle  of  Jehovah.  Your  fathers,  where  are  they? 
And  the  prophets,  do  they  live  for  ever  ?  But'^  My  words 
and  My  statutes,  with  which  I  charged  My  servants  the 
prophets,  did  they  not  overtake  your  fathers  ?  till  these 
turned  and  said,  As  Jehovah  of  Hosts  did  purpose  to  do 
unto  us,  according  to  our  deeds  and  according  to  our 
ways,  so  hath  He  dealt  with  us. 

It  is  a  sign  of  the  new  age  which  we  have  reached, 
that  its  prophet  should  appeal  to  the  older  prophets 
with  as  much  solemnity  as  they  did  to  Moses  himself. 
The  history  which  led  to  the  Exile  has  become  to  Israel 
as  classic  and  sacred  as  her  great  days  of  deliverance 
from  Egypt  and  of  conquest  in  Canaan.  But  still 
more  significant  is  what  Zechariah  seeks  from  that 
past ;  this  we  must  carefully  discover,  if  we  would 
appreciate  with  exactness  his  rank  as  a  prophet. 

The  development  of  religion  may  be  said  to  consist 
of  a  struggle  between  two  tempers,  both  of  which 
indeed  appeal  to  the  past,  but  from  very  opposite 
motives.  The  one  proves  its  devotion  to  the  older 
prophets  b}^  adopting  the  exact  formulas  of  their  doctrine, 
counts  these  sacred  to  the  letter,  and  would  enforce 
them  in  detail  upon  the  minds  and  circumstances 
of  the  new  generation.  It  conceives  that  truth  has 
been  promulgated  once  for  all  in  forms  as  enduring 
as  the  principles  they  contain.  It  fences  ancient  rites, 
cherishes  old  customs  and  institutions,  and  when  these 

'  As  in  LXX. 

"^  LXX.  has  misunderstood  and  expanded  this  verse. 


Zech.i.  1-6]         ZECHARIAH  THE  PROPHET  269 

are  questioned  it  becomes  alarmed  and   even  savage. 
The  other  temper  is   no  whit  behind  this   one  in   its 
devotion  to  the  past,  but  it  seeks  the  ancient  prophets 
not  so  much  for  what  they  have  said  as  for  what  they 
have  been,  not  for  what  they  enforced   but  for  what 
they  encountered,  suffered  and  confessed.     It  asks  not 
for  dogmas   but   for  experience  and    testimony.      He 
who  can  thus  read  the  past  and  interpret  it  to  his  own 
day— he  is  the  prophet.    In  his  reading  he  finds  nothing 
so  clear,   nothing  so  tragic,   nothing  so  convincing  as 
the  working  of  the  Word  of  God.     He   beholds  how 
this  came  to  men,  haunted  them  and  was  entreated  by 
them.     He   sees   that  it  was  their  great  opportunity, 
which  being  rejected  became  their  judgment.     He  finds 
abused  justice  vindicated,  proud  wrong  punished,  and 
all   God's  neglected   commonplaces    achieving  in  time 
their  triumph.     He  reads  how  men  came  to  see  this,  and 
to  confess  their  guilt.     He  is  haunted  by  the  remorse 
of  generations  who  know  how  they  might  have  obeyed 
the  Divine  call,  but  wilfully  did  not.     And  though  they 
have  perished,   and  the  prophets  have  died  and  their 
formulas  are  no  more  applicable,  the  victorious  Word 
itself  still   lives    and  cries    to    men    with    the    terrible 
emphasis  of  their  fathers'  experience.     All  this  is  the 
vision  of  the  true  prophet,  and  it  was  the  vision  of 
Zechariah. 

His  generation  was  one  whose  chief  temptation  was 
to  adopt  towards  the  past  the  other  attitude  we  have 
described.  In  their  feebleness  what  could  the  poor 
remnant  of  Israel  do  but  cling  servilely  to  the  former 
greatness  ?  The  vindication  of  the  Exile  had  stamped 
the  Divine  authority  of  the  earlier  prophets.  The 
habits,  which  the  life  in  Babylon  had  perfected,  of 
arranging  and  codifying  the  literature  of  the  past,  and 


270  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

of  employing  it,  in  place  of  altar  and  ritual,  in  the 
stated  service  of  God,  had  canonised  Scripture  and 
provoked  men  to  the  worship  of  its  very  letter.  Had 
the  real  prophet  not  again  been  raised,  these  habits 
might  have  too  early  produced  the  belief  that  the 
Word  of  God  was  exhausted,  and  must  have  fastened 
upon  the  feeble  life  of  Israel  that  mass  of  stiff  and 
stark  dogmas,  the  literal  application  of  which  Christ 
afterwards  found  crushing  the  liberty  and  the  force  of 
religion.  Zechariah  prevented  this — for  a  time.  He 
himself  was  mighty  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  past  :  no 
man  in  Israel  makes  larger  use  of  them.  But  he 
employs  them  as  witnesses,  not  as  dogmas ;  he  finds 
in  them  not  authority,  but  experience.^  He  reads  their 
testimony  to  the  ever-living  presence  of  God's  Word 
with  men.  And  seeing  that,  though  the  old  forms  and 
figures  have  perished  with  the  hearts  which  shaped 
them,  the  Word  itself  in  its  bare  truth  has  vindicated 
its  life  by  fulfilment  in  history,  he  knows  that  it  fives 
still,  and  hurls  it  upon  his  people,  not  in  the  forms 
published  by  this  or  that  prophet  of  long  ago,  but  in 
its  essence  and  direct  from  God  Himself,  as  His  Word 
for  to-day  and  now.  The  fathers,  where  are  they  ? 
And  the  prophets  y  do  they  live  for  ever?  But  My  words 
and  My  statutes,  with  which  I  charged  My  servants  the 
prophets,  have  they  not  overtaken  your  fathers  ?  Thus 
saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  Be  ye  not  like  your  fathers,  but 
turn  ye  to  Me  that  I  may  turn  to  you. 

The  argument  of  this  oracle  might  very  naturally 
have  been  narrowed  into  a  credential  for  the  prophet 
himself  as  sent   from   God.     About   his   reception   as 

*  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  Zechariah  appeals  to  the  Torah  of  the 
prophets,  and  does  not  mention  any  Torah  of  the  priests.  Cf.  Smend, 
A  T  Rel.  Gesch.,  pp.  I'jSi. 


Zech.i.  1-6]         ZECHARIAH  THE  PROPHET  271 

Jehovah's  messenger  Zechariah  shows  a  repeated 
anxiety.  Four  times  he  concludes  a  prediction  with 
the  words,  And  ye  shall  know  that  Jehovah  hath  sent 
me^  as  if  after  his  first  utterances  he  had  encountered 
that  suspicion  and  unbeUef  which  a  prophet  never 
failed  to  suffer  from  his  contemporaries.  But  in  this 
oracle  there  is  no  trace  of  such  personal  anxiety. 
The  oracle  is  pervaded  only  with  the  desire  to  prove 
the  ancient  Word  of  God  as  still  alive,  and  to  drive 
it  home  in  its  own  sheer  force.  Like  the  greatest  of 
his  order,  Zechariah  appears  with  the  call  to  repent : 
Turn  ye  to  Me — oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts — that  I  may 
turn  to  you.  This  is  the  pivot  on  which  history  has 
turned,  the  one  condition  on  which  God  has  been  able 
to  help  men.  Wherever  it  is  read  as  the  conclusion 
of  all  the  past,  wherever  it  is  proclaimed  as  the  con- 
science of  the  present,  there  the  true  prophet  is  found 
and  the  Word  of  God  has  been  spoken. 

The  same  possession  by  the  ethical  spirit  reappears, 
as  we  shall  see,  in  Zechariah's  orations  to  the  people 
after  the  anxieties  of  building  are  over  and  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Temple  is  in  sight.  In  these  he  affirms 
again  that  the  whole  essence  of  God's  Word  by  the 
older  prophets  has  been  moral — to  judge  true  judgment, 
to  practise  mercy,  to  defend  the  widow  and  orphan,  the 
stranger  and  poor,  and  to  think  no  evil  of  one  another. 
For  the  sad  fasts  of  the  Exile  Zechariah  enjoins  gladness, 
with  the  duty  of  truth  and  the  hope  of  peace.  Again 
and  again  he  enforces  sincerity  and  the  love  without 
dissimulation.  His  ideals  for  Jerusalem  are  very  high, 
including  the  conversion  of  the  nations  to  her  God. 
But  warlike  ambitions  have  vanished  from  them,  and 

'  Page  267,  n.  i. 


272  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

his  pictures  of  her  future  condition  are  homely  and 
practical.  Jerusalem  shall  be  no  more  a  fortress,  but 
spread  village-wise  without  walls.^  Full  families,  unlike 
the  present  colony  with  its  few  children  and  its  men 
worn  out  in  middle  life  by  harassing  warfare  with 
enemies  and  a  sullen  nature ;  streets  rife  with  children 
playing  and  old  folk  sitting  in  the  sun  ;  the  return  of 
the  exiles;  happy  harvests  and  springtimes  of  peace; 
solid  gain  of  labour  for  every  man,  with  no  raiding 
neighbours  to  harass,  nor  the  mutual  envies  of  peasants 
in  their  selfish  struggle  with  famine. 

It  is  a  simple,  hearty,  practical  man  whom  such 
prophesying  reveals,  the  spirit  of  him  bent  on  justice 
and  love,  and  yearning  for  the  unharassed  labour  of 
the  field  and  for  happy  homes.  No  prophet  has  more 
beautiful  sympathies,  a  more  direct  word  of  righteous- 
ness, or  a  braver  heart.  Fast  not^  but  love  truth  and 
peace.  Truth  and  wholesome  justice  set  ye  up  in  your 
gates.  Be  not  afraid;  strengthen  your  hands !  Old 
men  and  women  shall  yet  sit  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem, 
each  with  staff  in  hand  for  the  fulness  of  their  years ;  the 
city's  streets  shall  be  rife  with  boys  and  girls  at  play. 

'  This  picture  is  given  in  one  of  the  Visions  :  the  Third, 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE   VISIONS   OF  ZBCHARIAH 
Zechariah  i.  7 — vi. 

THE  Visions  of  Zechariah  do  not  lack  those  large 
and  simple  views  of  religion  which  we  have 
just  seen  to  be  the  charm  of  his  other  prophecies. 
Indeed  it  is  among  the  Visions  that  we  find  the  most 
spiritual  of  all  his  utterances  :  ^  Not  by  mighty  and  not 
by  force y  but  by  My  Spirit ,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  ^h^. 
Visions  express  the  need  of  the  Divine  foreiveness, 
emphasise  the  reality  of  sin,  as  a  principle  deeper  tnan 
tfl5 ' Civic  crimes  in  which  it  is  manifested,  and  declare 
the  powef'oTTrpST&'^Gams^^^  His  people.     The 

Visions  also  contain  the  remarkable  prospect  of  Jeru- 
salem as  the  City  of  Peace,  her  only  wall  the  Lord  Him- 
self.^ The  overthrow  of  the  heathen  empires  is  predicted 
by  the  Lord's  own  hand,  and  from  all  the  Visions  there 
are  absent  both  the  turmoil  and  the  glory  of  war. 

We  must  also  be  struck  by  the  absence  of  another 
element,  which  is  a  cause  of  complexity  in  the  writ- 
ings of  many  prophets — the  polemic  against  idolatry. 
Zechariah  nowhere  mentions  the  idols.  We  have 
already  seen  what  proof  this  silence  bears  for  the  fact 
that  the    community  to  which  he  spoke  was  not  that 

1  iv.  6.  Unless  this  be  taken  as  an  earlier  prophecy.  See 
above,  p.  260. 

2  ii.  9,  10  Heb.,  5,  6  LXX.  and  Eng. 

VOL.  II.  3  18 


274  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

half-heathen  remnant  of  Israel  which  had  remained  in 
the  land,  but  was  composed  of  worshippers  of  Jehovah 
who  at  His  word  had  returned  from  Babylon.^  Here 
we  have  only  to  do  with  the  bearing  of  the  fact  upon 
Zechariah's  style.  That  bewildering  confusion  of  the 
heathen  pantheon  and  its  rites,  which  forms  so  much 
of  our  difficulty  in  interpreting  some  of  the  prophecies 
of  Ezekiel  and  the  closing  chapters  of  the  Book  of 
Isaiah,  is  not  to  blame  for  any  of  the  complexity  of 
Zechariah's  Visions. 

Nor  can  we  attribute  the  latter  to  the  fact  that  the 
Visions  are  dreams,  and  therefore  bound  to  be  more 
involved  and  obscure  than  the  words  of  Jehovah  which 
came  to  Zechariah  in  the  open  dayhght  of  his  people's 
public  life.  In  chaps,  i.  7 — vi.  we  have  not  the  narra- 
tive of  actual  dreams,  but  a  series  of  conscious  and 
artistic  allegories — the  deliberate  translation  into  a 
carefully  constructed  symbolism  of  the  Divine  truths 
with  which  the  prophet  was  entrusted  by  his  God. 
Yet  this  only  increases  our  problem — why  a  man  with 
such  gifts  of  direct  speech,  and  such  clear  views  of 
his  people's  character  and  history,  should  choose  to 
express  the  latter  by  an  imagery  so  artificial  and 
involved  ?  In  his  orations  Zechariah  is  very  like  the 
prophets  whom  we  have  known  before  the  Exile, 
thoroughly  ethical  and  intent  upon  the  public  conscience 
of  his  time.  He  appreciates  what  they  were,  feels 
himself  standing  in  their  succession,  and  is  endowed 
both  with  their  spirit  and  their  style.  But  none  of 
them  constructs  the  elaborate  allegories  which  he  does, 
or  insists  upon  the  religious  symbolism  which  he  enforces 


*  See  above,  p.  214,  where  this  is  stated  as  an  argument  against 
Kosters'  theory  that  there  was  no  Return  from  Babylon  in  the  reign 
of  Cyrus. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]     THE   VISIONS  OF  ZECHARIAH  275 

as  indispensable  to  the  standing  of  Israel  with  God. 
Not  only  are  their  visions  few  and  simple,  but  they 
look  down  upon  the  visionary  temper  as  a  rude  stage 
of  prophecy  and  inferior  to  their  own,  in  which  the 
Word  of  God  is  received  by  personal  communion  with 
Himself,  and  conveyed  to  His  people  by  straight  and 
plain  words.  Some  of  the  earlier  prophets  even  con- 
demn all  priesthood  and  ritual ;  none  of  them  regards 
these  as  indispensable  to  Israel's  right  relations  with 
Jehovah ;  and  none  employs  those  superhuman 
mediators  of  the  Divine  truth,  by  whom  Zechariah 
is  instructed  in  his  Visions. 

I.  The  Influences  which  Moulded  the  Visions. 

The  explanation  of  this  change  that  has  come  over 
prophecy  must  be  sought  for  in  certain  habits  which 
the  people  formed  in  exile.  During  the  Exile  several 
causes  conspired  to  develop  among  Hebrew  writers 
the  tempers  both  of  symbolism  and  apocalypse.  The 
chief  of  these  was  their  separation  from  the  realities  of 
civic  life,  with  the  opportunity  their  political  leisure 
afforded  them  of  brooding  and  dreaming.  Facts  and 
Divine  promises,  which  had  previously  to  be  dealt  with 
by  the  conscience  of  the  moment,  were  left  to  be  worked 
out  by  the  imagination.  The  exiles  were  not  respon- 
sible citizens  or  statesmen,  but  dreamers.  They  were 
inspired  by  mighty  hopes  for  the  future,  and  not 
fettered  by  the  practical  necessities  of  a  definite 
historical  situation  upon  which  these  hopes  had  to  be 
immediately  realised.  They  had  a  far-off  horizon  to 
build  upon,  and  they  occupied  the  whole  breadth  of  it. 
They  had  a  long  time  to  build,  and  they  elaborated  the 
minutest  details  of  their  architecture.  Consequently 
their   construction   of .  the  future  of  Israel,   and  their 


276  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

description  of  the  processes  by  which  it  was  to  be 
reached,  became  colossal,  ornate  and  lavishly  symbolic. 
Nor  could  the  exiles  fail  to  receive  stimulus  for  all  this 
from  the  rich  imagery  of  Babylonian  art  by  which  they 
were  surrounded. 

Under  these  influences  there  were  three  strong 
developments  in  Israel.  One  was  that  development  of 
Apocalypse  the  first  beginnings  of  which  we  traced  in 
Zephaniah — the  representation  of  God's  providence  of 
the  world  and  of  His  people,  not  by  the  ordinary 
political  and  military  processes  of  history,  but  by  awful 
convulsions  and  catastrophes,  both  in  nature  and  in 
politics,  in  which  God  Himself  appeared,  either  alone 
in  sudden  glory  or  by  the  mediation  of  heavenly 
armies.  The  second — and  it  was  but  a  part  of  the 
first — was  the  development  of  a  belief  in  Angels : 
superhuman  beings  who  had  not  only  a  part  to  play 
in  the  apocalyptic  wars  and  revolutions ;  but,  in  the 
growing  sense,  which  characterises  the  period,  of  God's 
distance  and  awfulness,  were  believed  to  act  as  His 
agents  in  the  communication  of  His  Word  to  men. 
And,  thirdly,  there  was  the  development  of  the  Ritual. 
To  some  minds  this  may  appear  the  strangest  of  all 
the  effects  of  the  Exile.  The  fall  of  the  Temple,  its 
hierarchy  and  sacrifices,  might  be  supposed  to  enforce 
more  spiritual  conceptions  of  God  and  of  His  communion 
with  His  people.  And  no  doubt  it  did.  The  impos- 
sibility of  the  legal  sacrifices  in  exile  opened  the  mind 
of  Israel  to  the  belief  that  God  was  satisfied  with  the 
sacrifices  of  the  broken  heart,  and  drew  near,  without 
mediation,  to  all  who  were  humble  and  pure  of  heart. 
But  no  one  in  Israel  therefore  understood  that  these 
sacrifices  were  for  ever  abolished.  Their  interruption 
was  regarded  as  merely  temporary  even  by  the  most 


Zech.i.7-vi.]     THE   VISIONS  OF  ZECHARIAH  277 

spiritual  of  Jewish  writers.  The  Fifty-First  Psalm,  for 
instance,  which  declares  that  the  sacrifices  of  God  are 
a  broken  spirit;  a  broken  and  a  contrite  hearty  O  Lordy 
Thou  wilt  not  despise,  immediately  follows  this  declara- 
tion by  the  assurance  that  when  God  builds  again  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem^  He  will  once  more  take  delight  in 
the  legal  sacrifices:  burnt  offering  and  whole  burnt 
offering,  the  oblation  of  bullocks  upon  Thine  altar}  For 
men  of  such  views  the  ruin  of  the  Temple  was  not  its 
abolition  with  the  whole  dispensation  which  it  repre- 
sented, but  rather  the  occasion  for  its  reconstruction 
upon  wider  lines  and  a  more  detailed  system,  for  the 
planning  of  which  the  nation's  exile  afforded  the  leisure 
and  the  carefulness  of  art  described  above.  The  ancient 
liturgy,  too,  was  insufficient  for  the  stronger  convic- 
tions of  guilt  and  need  of  purgation,  which  sore 
punishment  had  impressed  upon  the  people.  Then, 
scattered  among  the  heathen  as  they  v/ere,  they  learned 
to  require  stricter  laws  and  more  drastic  ceremonies 
to  restore  and  preserve  their  holiness.  Their  ritual, 
therefore,  had  to  be  expanded  and  detailed  to  a  degree 
far  beyond  what  we  find  in  Israel's  earlier  systems  of 
worship.  With  the  fall  of  the  monarchy  and  the 
absence  of  civic  life  the  importance  of  the  priesthood 
was  proportionately  enhanced ;  and  the  growing  sense 
of  God's  aloofness  from  the  world,  already  alluded  to, 
made  the  more  indispensable  human,  as  well  as  super- 
human, mediators  between  Himself  and  His  people. 
Consider  these  things,  and  it  will  be  clear  why  prophecy, 
which  with  Amos  had  begun  a  war  against  all  ritual, 
and  with  Jeremiah  had  achieved  a  religion  absolutely 
independent  of  priesthood  and  Temple,  should  reappear 

'  Vv.  17  and  19. 


278  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

after  the  Exile,  insistent  upon  the  building  of  the 
Temple,  enforcing  the  need  both  of  priesthood  and 
sacrifice,  and  while  it  proclaimed  the  Messianic  King 
and  the  High  Priest  as  the  great  feeders  of  the  national 
hfe  and  worship,  finding  no  place  beside  them  for  the 
Prophet  himself/ 

The  force  of  these  developments  of  Apocalypse, 
Angelology  and  the  Ritual  appears  both  in  Ezekiel 
and  in  the  exilic  codification  of  the  ritual  which  forms 
so  large  a  part  of  the  Pentateuch.  Ezekiel  carries 
Apocalypse  far  beyond  the  beginnings  started  by 
Zephaniah.  He  introduces,  though  not  under  the 
name  of  angels,  superhuman  mediators  between  himself 
and  God.  The  Priestly  Code  does  not  mention  angels, 
and  has  no  Apocalypse  ;  but  like  Ezekiel  it  develops, 
to  an  extraordinary  degree,  the  ritual  of  Israel.  Both 
its  author  and  Ezekiel  base  on  the  older  forms,  but 
build  as  men  who  are  not  confined  by  the  lines  of  an 
actually  existing  system.  The  changes  they  make, 
the  innovations  they  introduce,  are  too  numerous  to 
mention  here.  To  illustrate  their  influence  upon 
Zechariah,  it  is  enough  to  emphasise  the  large  place 
they  give  in  the  ritual  to  the  processes  of  propitiation 
and  cleansing  from  sin,  and  the  increased  authority 
with  which  they  invest  the  priesthood.  In  Ezekiel 
Israel  has  still  a  Prince,  though  he  is  not  called  King. 
He  arranges  the  cultus,^  and  sacrifices  are  offered  for 
him  and  the  people,^  but  the  priests  teach  and  judge 
the  people.^  In  the  Priestly  Code^  the  priesthood  is 
more  rigorously  fenced  than  by  Ezekiel  from  the  laity, 

1  See  Zechariah's  Fifth  Vision.         ^  xlv.  22. 

2  xliv.   I  if.  *  xliv.  23,  24. 

^  Its  origin  was  the  Exile,  whether   its   date    be  before  or  after 
the  First  Return  under  Cyrus  in  537  b.c. 


Zech.i.7-vi.]     THE   VISIONS   OF  ZECHARIAH  279 

and  more  regularly  graded.  At  its  head  appears  a 
High  Priest  (as  he  does  not  in  Ezekiel),  and  by  his 
side  the  civil  rulers  are  portrayed  in  lesser  dignity  and 
power.  Sacrifices  are  made,  no  longer  as  with  Ezekiel 
for  Prince  and  People,  but  for  Aaron  and  the  Con- 
gregation ;  and  throughout  the  narrative  of  ancient 
history,  into  the  form  of  which  this  Code  projects  its 
legislation,  the  High  Priest  stands  above  the  captain  of 
the  host,  even  when  the  latter  is  Joshua  himself.  God's 
,  enemies  are  defeated  not  so  much  by  the  wisdom  and 
valour  of  the  secular  powers,  as  by  the  miracles  of 
Jehovah  Himself,  mediated  through  the  priesthood. 
Ezekiel  and  the  Priestly  Code  both  elaborate  the 
sacrifices  of  atonement  and  sanctification  beyond  all 
the  earlier  uses. 

2.  General  Features  of  the  Visions. 

It  was  beneath  these  influences  that  Zechariah  grew 
up,  and  to  them  we  may  trace,  not  only  numerous 
details  of  his  Visions,  but  the  whole  of  their  involved 
symbolism.  He  was  himself  a  priest  and  the  son  of 
a  priest,  born  and  bred  in  the  very  order  to  which  we 
owe  the  codification  of  the  ritual,  and  the  develop- 
ment of  those  ideas  of  guilt  and  uncleanness  that 
led  to  its  expansion  and  specialisation.  The  Visions 
in  which  he  deals  with  these  are  the  Third  to  the 
Seventh.  As  with  Haggai  there  is  a  High  Priest,  in 
advance  upon  Ezekiel  and  in  agreement  with  the  Priestly 
Code.  As  in  the  latter  the  High  Priest  represents  the 
people,  and  carries  their  guilt  before  God.^  He  and 
his  colleagues  are  pledges  and  portents  of  the  coming 
Messiah.     But  the  civil  power  is  not  yet  diminished 

'  Fourth  Vision,  chap.  iii. 


28o  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


before  the  sacerdotal,  as  in  the  Priestly  Code.  We 
shall  find  indeed  that  a  remarkable  attempt  has  been 
made  to  alter  the  original  text  of  a  prophecy  appended 
to  the  Visions/  in  order  to  divert  to  the  High  Priest 
the  coronation  and  Messianic  rank  there  described. 
But  any  one  who  reads  the  passage  carefully  can  see 
for  himself  that  the  crown  (a  single  crown,  as  the 
verb  which  it  governs  proves^)  which  Zechariah  was 
ordered  to  make  was  designed  for  Another  than  the 
priest,  that  the  priest  was  but  to  stand  at  this  Other's 
right  hand,  and  that  there  was  to  be  concord  between 
the  two  of  them.  This  Other  can  only  have  been  the 
Messianic  King,  Zerubbabel,  as  was  already  proclaimed 
by  Haggai.^  The  altered  text  is  due  to  a  later  period, 
when  the  High  Priest  became  the  civil  as  well  as  the 
religious  head  of  the  community.  To  Zechariah  he 
was  still  only  the  right  hand  of  the  monarch  in  govern- 
ment ;  but,  as  we  have  seen,  the  religious  life  of  the 
people  was  already  gathered  up  and  concentrated  in 
him.  It  is  the  priests,  too,  who  by  their  perpetual 
service  and  holy  life  bring  on  the  Messianic  era.* 
Men  come  to  the  Temple  to  propitiate  Jehovah,  for 
which  Zechariah  uses  the  anthropomorphic  expression 
to  make  smooth  or  placid  His  face. ^  No  more  than  this 
is  made  of  the  sacrificial  system,  which  was  not  in  full 
course  when  the  Visions  were  announced.  But  the 
symbolism  of  the  Fourth  Vision  is  drawn  from  the 
furniture  of  the  Temple.  It  is  interesting  that  the  great 
candelabrum  seen  by  the  prophet  should  be  like,  not 


'  VI.  9-15,  3  jj  20-23. 

^  See  ver.  II.  *  iii.  8. 

*  nin''  ''J£)■D^^  n^n.  The  verb  (Piel)  originally  means  to  make 
weak  or  flaccid  (the  Kal  means  to  be  sick),  and  so  to  soften  or 
weaken  by  flattery,     i  Sam.  xiii.   12;  i  Kings  xiii.  6,  etc. 


Zech.i.7-vi.]     THE   VISIONS   OF  ZECHARIAH  281 

the  ten  lights  of  the  old  Temple  of  Solomon,  but  the 
seven-branched  candlestick  described  in  the  Priestly 
Code.  In  the  Sixth  and  Seventh  Visions,  the  strong 
convictions  of  guilt  and  uncleanness,  which  were  en- 
gendered in  Israel  by  the  Exile,  are  not  removed  by  the 
sacrificial  means  enforced  in  the  Priestly  Code,  but  by 
symbolic  processes  in  the  style  of  the  visions  of  Ezekiel. 
The  Visions  in  which  Zechariah  treats  of  the  outer 
history  of  the  world  are  the  first  two  and  the  last,  and 
in  these  we  notice  the  influence  of  the  Apocalypse 
developed  during  the  Exile.  In  Zechariah's  day  Israel 
had  no  stage  for  their  history  save  the  site  of  Jerusalem 
and  its  immediate  neighbourhood.  So  long  as  he  keeps 
to  this  Zechariah  is  as  practical  and  matter-of-fact  as 
any  of  the  prophets,  but  when  he  has  to  go  beyond  it 
to  describe  the  general  overthrow  of  the  heathen,  he  is 
unable  to  project  that,  as  Amos  or  Isaiah  did,  in  terms 
of  historic  battle,  and  has  to  call  in  the  apocalyptic.  A 
people  such  as  that  poor  colony  of  exiles,  with  no  issue 
upon  history,  is  forced  to  take  refuge  in  Apocalypse, 
and  carries  with  it  even  those  of  its  prophets  whose 
conscience,  like  Zechariah's,  is  most  strongly  bent  upon 
the  practical  present.  Consequently  these  three  his- 
torical Visions  are  the  most  vague  of  the  eight.  They 
reveal  the  whole  earth  under  the  care  of  Jehovah  and 
the  patrol  of  His  angels.  They  definitely  predict  the 
overthrow  of  the  heathen  empires.  But,  unlike  Amos 
or  Isaiah,  the  prophet  does  not  see  by  what  political 
movements  this  is  to  be  effected.  The  world  is  still 
quiet  and  at  peace}  The  time  is  hidden  in  the  Divine 
counsels  ;  the  means,  though  clearly  symbolised  in  four 
smiths  who  come    forward  to  smite  the  horns   of  the 

^j^ First  Vision,  chap.  i.  ii. 


282  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

heathen/  and  in  a  chariot  which  carries  God's  wrath 
to  the  North,^  are  obscure.  The  prophet  appears  to 
have  intended,  not  any  definite  individuals  or  poHtical 
movements  of  the  immediate  future,  but  God's  own 
supernatural  forces.  In  other  words,  the  Smiths  and 
Chariots  are  not  an  allegory  of  history,  but  powers 
apocalyptic.  The  forms  of  the  symbols  were  derived 
by  Zechariah  from  different  sources.  Perhaps  that  of 
the  smiths  who  destroy  the  horns  in  the  Second  Vision 
was  suggested  by  the  smiths  of  destruction  threatened 
upon  Ammon  by  Ezekiel.^  In  the  horsemen'  of  the 
First  Vision  and  the  chariots  of  the  Eighth,  Ewald 
sees  a  reflection  of  the  couriers  and  posts  which  Darius 
organised  throughout  the  empire  ;  they  are  more  pro- 
bably, as  we  shall  see,  a  reflection  of  the  military 
bands  and  patrols  of  the  Persians.  But  from  whatever 
quarter  Zechariah  derived  the  exact  aspect  of  these 
Divine  messengers,  he  found  many  precedents  for  them 
in  the  native  beliefs  of  Israel.  They  are,  in  short, 
angels,  incarnate  as  Hebrew  angels  always  were,  and 
in  fashion  like  men.  But  this  brings  up  the  whole 
subject  of  the  angels,  whom  he  also  sees  employed 
as  the  mediators  of  God's  Word  to  him  ;  and  that 
is  large  enough  to  be  left  to  a  chapter  by  itself^ 

We  have  now  before  us  all  the  influences  which  led 
Zechariah  to  the  main  form  and  chief  features  of  his 
Visions. 

3.  Exposition  of  the  Several  Visions. 
For  all  the  Visions  there  is  one  date,  in  the  twenty-fourth 
day  of  the  eleventh  month,  the  month  Shebat,  in  the  second 

>  Second  Vision,  ii.  1-4  Heb.,  i.  18-21  LXX.  and  Eng. 

^  Eighth  Vision,  chap.  vi.  1-8. 

3  xjti.  36  Heb.,  31  Eng. :  skilful  to  destroy.         *  See  next  chapter. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE    VISIONS   OF  ZECHARIAH  283 

year  of  Darius^  that  is  January  or  February  519;  and 
one  Divine  impulse,  the  Word  of  Jehovah  came  to  the 
prophet  Zekharyahj  son  of  Berekhyahu,  son  of  Iddo,  as 
follows. 

The  First  Vision  :  The  Angel-Horsemen  (i.  7-17). 

The  seventy  years  which  Jeremiah  had  fixed  for  the 
duration  of  the  Babylonian  servitude  were  drawing 
to  a  close.  Four  months  had  elapsed  since  Haggai 
promised  that  in  a  little  while  God  would  shake  all 
nations/  But  the  world  was  not  shaken  :  there  was 
no  political  movement  which  promised  to  restore  her 
glory  to  Jerusalem.  A  very  natural  disappointment 
must  have  been  the  result  among  the  Jews.  In  this 
situation  of  affairs  the  Word  came  to  Zechariah,  and 
both  situation  and  Word  he  expressed  by  his  First 
Vision. 

It  was  one  of  the  myrtle-covered  glens  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Jerusalem  :  ^  Zechariah  calls  it  the  Glen 
or  Valley-Bottom,  either  because  it  was  known  under 
that  name  to  the  Jews,  or  because  he  was  himself  wont 
to  frequent  it  for  prayer.  He  discovers  in  it  what 
seems  to  be  a  rendezvous  of  Persian  cavalry-scouts,^ 
the  leader  of  the  troop  in  front,  and  the  rest  behind 
him,  having  just  come  in  with  their  reports.  Soon, 
however,  he  is  made  aware  that  they  are  angels,  and 
with   that   quick,   dissolving  change   both  of  function 


1  Jer.  XXV.  12;  Hag.  ii.  7. 

^  Myrtles  were  once  common  in  the  Holy  Land,  and  have  been 
recently  found  (Hasselquist,  Travels).  For  their  prevalence  near 
Jerusalem  see  Neh.  viii.  15.  They  do  not  appear  to  have  any 
symbolic  value  in  the  Vision. 

^  For  a  less  probable  explanation  see  above,  p.  282 . 


284  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

and  figure,  which  marks  all  angelic  apparitions/  they 
explain  to  him  their  mission.  Now  it  is  an  angel- 
interpreter  at  his  side  who  speaks,  and  now  the  angel 
on  the  front  horse.  They  are  scouts  of  God  come  in 
from  their  survey  of  the  whole  earth.  The  world  lies 
quiet.  Whereupon  the  angel  of  Jehovah  asks  Him  how 
long  His  anger  must  rest  on  Jerusalem  and  nothing 
be  done  to  restore  her  ;  and  the  prophet  hears  a  kind 
and  comforting  answer.  The  nations  have  done  more 
evil  to  Israel  than  God  empowered  them  to  do.  Their 
aggravations  have  changed  His  wrath  against  her  to 
pity,  and  in  pity  He  is  come  back  to  her.  She  shall 
soon  be  rebuilt  and  overflow  with  prosperity. 

The  only  perplexity  in  all  this  is  the  angels'  report 
that  the  whole  earth  lies  quiet.  How  this  could  have 
been  in  519  is  difficult  to  understand.  The  great 
revolts  against  Darius  were  then  in  active  progress,  the 
result  was  uncertain  and  he  took  at  least  three  more 
years  to  put  them  all  down.  They  were  confined,  it 
is  true,  to  the  east  and  north-east  of  the  empire,  but 
some  of  them  threatened  Babylon,  and  we  can  hardly 
ascribe  the  report  of  the  angels  to  such  a  limitation  of 
the  Jews'  horizon  at  this  time  as  shut  out  Mesopotamia 
or  the  lands  to  the  north  of  her.  There  remain  two 
alternatives.  Either  these  far-away  revolts  made  only 
more  impressive  the  stagnancy  of  the  tribes  of  the  rest 
of  the  empire,  and  the  helplessness  of  the  Jews  and 
their  Syrian  neighbours  was  convincingly  shown  by 
their  inability  to  take  advantage  even  of  the  desperate 
straits  to  which  Darius  was  reduced;  or  else  in  that 
month  of  vision  Darius  had  quelled  one  of  the  rebellions 
against  him,  and  for  the  moment  there  was  quiet  in 
the  world. 

1  See  pp.311,  313,  etc. 


Zech.i.7-vi.]     THE   VISIONS  OF  ZECHARIAH  285 

By  night  I  had  a  vision,  and  behold  I  a  man  riding  a 
brown  horse^  and  he  was  standing  between  the  myrtles 
that  are  in  the  Glen;'^  and  behind  him  horses  brown, 
bay "  and  white.  And  I  said,  What  are  these,  my  lord? 
And  the  angel  who  talked  with  me  said,  I  will  show  you 
what  these  are.  And  the  man  who  was  standing  among 
the  myrtles  answered  and  said,  These  are  they  whom 
Jehovah  hath  sent  to  go  to  and  fro  through  the  earth. 
And  they  answered  the  angel  of  Jehovah  who .  stood 
among  the  myrtles,^  and  said.  We  have  gone  up  and 
down  through  the  earth,  and  lo  !  the  whole  earth  is  still 
and  at  peace. ^  And  the  angel  of  Jehovah  answered  and 
said,  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  how  long  hast  Thou  no  pity  for 
Jerusalem  and  the  cities  ofjudah,  with  which  ^  Thou  hast 
been  wroth  these  seventy  years  ?  And  Jehovah  answered 
the  angel  who  talked  with  me^  kind  words  and  comforting. 
And  the  angel  who  talked  with  me  said  to  me,  Proclaim 
now  as  follows :  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  I  am 
zealous  for  Jerusalem  and  for  Zion,  with  a  great  zeal; 
but  with  great  wrath  am  I  wroth  against  the  arrogant 
Gentiles.     For  I  was  but  a  little  angry  with  Israel,  but 

*  Ewald  omits  riding  a  brown  horse,  as  "  marring  the  lucidity  of  the 
description,  and  added  from  a  misconception  by  an  early  hand."  But 
we  must  not  expect  lucidity  in  a  phantasmagoria  like  this. 

"^  TO)^^^  Mesullah,  either  shadow  from  T>'i,  or  for  H^-IVP,  ravine, 
or  else  a  proper  name.  The  LXX„  which  uniformly  for  O'lDTHj 
myrtles,  reads  DHH,  mountains,  renders  n?^D3  'W^  by  tCov  Karaa-Kiuv' 
Ewald  and  Hitzig  read  n?VP,  Arab,  mizhallah,  shadowing  or  tent. 

^  Heb.  D'^pTki^,  only  here.  For  this  LXX.  gives  two  kinds,  Kal  \papol 
Kal  TTOLKiXoc,  and  dappled  and  piebald.  Wright  gives  a  full  treatment 
of  the  question,  pp.  531  ff.  He  points  out  that  the  cognate  word  in 
Arabic  means  sorrel,  or  yellowish  red. 

*  IVho  stood  among  the  myrtles  omitted  by  Nowack, 

*  Isa.  xxxvii.  29;  Jer.  xlviii.  11  ;  Psalm  cxxiii.  4;  Zeph.  i.  12. 
«  Or  for. 

Who  talked  with  me  omitted  by  Nowack. 


2S6  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

they  aggravated  the  evil}  Therefore  thus  saith  Jehovah, 
I  am  returned  to  Jerusalem  with  mercies.  My  house 
shall  be  built  in  her — oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts — and  the 
measuring  line  shall  be  drawn  over  Jerusalem.  Proclaim 
yet  again,  saying:  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  My 
cities  shall  yet  overflow  with  prosperity,  and  Jehovah  shall 
again  comfort  Zion,  and  again  make  choice  of  Jerusalem. 
Two  things  are  to  be  noted  in  this  oracle.  No 
political  movement  is  indicated  as  the  means  of  Jeru- 
salem's restoration  :  this  is  to  be  the  effect  of  God's  free 
grace  in  returning  to  dwell  in  Jerusalem,  which  is  the 
reward  of  the  building  of  the  Temple.  And  there  is 
an  interesting  explanation  of  the  motive  for  God's  new 
grace  :  in  executing  His  sentence  upon  Israel,  the 
heathen  had  far  exceeded  their  commission,  and  now 
themselves  deserved  punishment.  That  is  to  say,  the 
restoration  of  Jerusalem  and  the  resumption  of  the 
worship  are  not  enough  for  the  future  of  Israel.  The 
heathen  must  be  chastised.  But  Zechariah  does  not 
predict  any  overthrow  of  the  world's  power,  either  by 
earthly  or  by  heavenly  forces.  This  is  entirely  in 
harmony  with  the  insistence  upon  peace  which  dis- 
tinguishes him  from  other  prophets. 

The  Second  Vision  :  The  Four  Horns  and  the 
Four  Smiths  (ii.  1-4  Heb.,  i.  18-21  Eng.). 

The  Second  Vision  supplies  what  is  lacking  in  the 
First,  the  destruction  of  the  tyrants  who  have  oppressed 
Israel.  The  prophet  sees  four  horns,  which,  he  is  told 
by  his  interpreting  angel,  are  the  powers  that  have 
scattered  Judah.  The  many  attempts  to  identify  these 
with   four   heathen   nations  are   ingenious   but   futile. 

'  Heb.  helped  for  evil,  or  till  it  became  a  calamity. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]     THE   VISIONS   OF  ZECHARIAH  287 

^^  Four  horns  were  seen  as  representing  the  totaUty  of 
Israel's  enemies — her  enemies  from  all  quarters."  ^  And 
to  destroy  these  horns  four  smiths  appear.  Because  in 
the  Vision  the  horns  are  of  iron,  in  Israel  an  old  symbol 
of  power,  the  first  verb  used  of  the  action  can  hardly 
be,  as  in  the  Hebrew  text,  to  terrify.  The  Greek  reads 
sharpen^  and  probably  some  verb  meaning  to  cut  or 
chisel  stood  in  the  original.^ 

And  I  lifted  mine  eyes  and  looked,  and  lo  !  four 
horns.  And  I  said  to  the  angel  who  spoke  with  me^ 
What  are  these  ?  And  he  said  to  me.  These  are  the 
horns  which  have  scattered  Judahy  Israel  and  Jerusalem.^ 
And  Jehovah  showed  me  four  smiths.  And  I  said.  What 
are  these  coming  to  do  ?  And  He  spake,  saying,  These 
are  the  horns  which  scattered  Judah,  so  that  none  lifted  up 
his  head;  '^  and  these  are  come  to  .  .  .^  them,  to  strike  down 
the  horns  of  the  nations,  that  lifted  the  horn  against  the 
land  ofjudah  to  scatter  it. 

The  Third  Vision  :  The  City  of  Peace 
(ii.   5-9  Heb.,  ii.   1-5   Eng.). 

Like  the  Second  Vision,  the  Third  follows  from  the 
First,  another,  but  a  still  more  significant,  supplement. 

*  Marcus  Dods,  Hag.,  Zech.  and  Mai,  p.  71.  Orelli :  "  In  distinction 
from  Daniel,  Zechariah  is  fond  of  a  simultaneous  survey,  not  the 
presenting  of  a  succession." 

2  For  the  symbolism  of  iron  horns  see  Micah  iv.  13,  and  compare 
Orelli's  note,  in  which  it  is  pointed  out  that  the  destroyers  must  be 
smiths  as  in  Isa.  xliv.  12,  workmen  of  iron,  and  not  as  in  LXX. 
carpenters. 

^  Wellhausen  and  Nowack  delete  Israel  and  Jerusalem ;  the  latter 
does  not  occur  in  Codd.  A,  Q,  of  Septuagint. 

*  Wellhausen  reads,  after  Mai.  ii.  9,  "W^  >DD,  so  that  it  lifted  not 
its  head;  but  in  that  case  we  should  not  find  S^^'\,  but  H^N"!. 

^  ^nnn,  but  LXX.  read  innn,  and  either  that  or  some  verb  of 
cutting  must  be  read. 


288  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

The   First  had  promised  the  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem, 
and  now  the  prophet  beholds  a  young  man — by  this 
term  he  probably  means  a  servant  or  apprentice — who 
is   attempting   to    define   the    limits  of  the  new   city. 
In  the  light  of  what  this  attempt  encounters,  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  the  prophet  means  to  symbolise  by 
it  the  intention  of  building  the  walls  upon  the  old  lines, 
so  as  to  make  Jerusalem  again  the  mountain  fortress 
she  had  previously  been.     Some  have  considered  that 
the  young  man  goes   forth   only  to    see,  or  to  show, 
the  extent  of  the  city  in  the  approaching  future.     But 
if  this  had  been  his  motive,  there  would  have  been  no 
reason    in    interrupting  him  with    other   orders.     The 
point  is,   that    he   has  narrow  ideas  of  what  the  city 
should  be,  and  is  prepared    to  define  it  upon  its  old 
lines  of  a  fortress.     For    the   interpreting   angel  who 
comes  forward^  is  told   by  another  angel  to  run  and 
tell  the  young  man  that  in  the  future  Jerusalem  shall  be 
a  large  unwalled  town,  and  this,  not  only  because  of 
the  multitude  of  its  population,  for  even  then  it  might 
still   have   been    fortified    like   Niniveh,    but    because 
Jehovah  Himself  shall  be   its  wall.     The  young  man 
is   prevented,    not   merely  from  making  it   small,  but 
from  making  it  a  citadel.     And  this  is  in  conformity 
with  all  the  singular  absence  of  war  from  Zechariah's 
Visions,  both  of  the  future   deliverance   of  Jehovah's 
people  and  of  their   future   duties  before  Him.     It  is 
indeed  remarkable  how  Zechariah  not   only  develops 
none  of  the  warlike  elements  of  earlier  Messianic  pro- 
phecies, but  tells  us  here  of  how  God  Himself  actually 
prevented  their  repetition,  and  insists  again  and  again 

^  The  Hebrew,  literally  comes  forth,  is  the  technical  term  through- 
out the  Visions  for  the  entrance  of  the  figures  upon  the  stage  of 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS  OF  ZECHARIAH  289 

only  on  those  elements  of  ancient  prediction  which  had 
filled  the  future  of  Israel  with  peace. 

And  I  lifted  mine  eyes  and  looked,  and  lo  !  a  man 
with  a  measuring  rope  in  his  hand.  So  I  said,  Whither 
art  thou  going  ?  And  he  said  to  me,  To  measure  Jeru- 
salem :  to  see  how  much  its  breadth  and  how  much  its 
length  should  be.  And  lo  !  the  angel  who  talked  with 
me  came  forward^  and  another  angel  came  forward  to 
meet  him.  And  he  said  to  him,  Run  and  speak  to  yonder 
young  man  thus  :  Like  a  number  of  open  villages  shall 
Jerusalem  remain,  because  of  the  multitude  of  men  and 
cattle  in  the  midst  of  her.  And  I  Myself  will  be  to  her — 
oracle  of  Jehovah — a  wall  of  fire  round  about,  and  for 
glory  will  I  be  in  her  midst. 

In  this  Vision  Zechariah  gives  us,  with  his  pro- 
phecy, a  lesson  in  the  interpretation  of  prophecy.  His 
contemporaries  believed  God's  promise  to  rebuild  Jeru- 
salem, but  they  defined  its  limits  by  the  conditions  of 
an  older  and  a  narrower  day.  They  brought  forth  their 
measuring  rods,  to  measure  the  future  by  the  sacred 
attainments  of  the  past.  Such  literal  fulfilment  of  His 
Word  God  prevented  by  that  ministry  of  angels  which 
Zechariah  beheld.  He  would  not  be  bound  by  those 
forms  which  His  Word  had  assumed  in  suitableness  to 
the  needs  of  ruder  generations.  The  ideal  of  many  of 
the  returned  exiles  must  have  been  that  frowning  citadel, 
those  gates  of  everlastingness,^  which  some  of  them  cele- 
brated in  Psalms,  and  from  which  the  hosts  of  Senna- 
cherib had  been  broken  and  swept  back  as  the  angry 
sea  is  swept  from  the  fixed  line  of  Canaan's  coast.^ 
What    had    been    enough    for   David  and    Isaiah    was 

*  LXX.  'laTrjKeL,  stood  up  :  adopted  by  Nowack. 
2  Psalm  xxiv.  '*  Isa.  xvii.  12-14. 

VOL.  II.  19 


290  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

enough  for  them,  especially  as  so  many  prophets  of  the 
Lord  had  foretold  a  Messianic  Jerusalem  that  should 
be  a  counterpart  of  the  historical.  But  God  breaks  the 
letter  of  His  Word  to  give  its  spirit  a  more  glorious 
fulfilment.  Jerusalem  shall  not  be  builded  as  a  city  that 
is  compact  together,^  but  open  and  spread  abroad  village- 
wise  upon  her  high  mountains,  and  God  Himself  her 
only  wall. 

The  interest  of  this  Vision  is  therefore  not  only 
historical.  For  ourselves  it  has  an  abiding  doctrinal 
value.  It  is  a  lesson  in  the  method  of  applying 
prophecy  to  the  future.  How  much  it  is  needed  we 
must  feel  as  we  remember  the  readiness  of  men  among 
ourselves  to  construct  the  Church  of  God  upon  the 
lines  His  own  hand  drew  for  our  fathers,  and  to  raise 
again  the  bulwarks  behind  which  they  sufficiently 
sheltered  His  shrine.  Whether  these  ancient  and 
sacred  defences  be  dogmas  or  institutions,  we  have  no 
right,  God  tells  us,  to  cramp  behind  them  His  powers 
for  the  future.  And  the  great  men  whom  He  raises 
to  remind  us  of  this,  and  to  prevent  by  their  ministry 
the  timid  measurements  of  the  zealous  but  servile 
spirits  who  would  confine  everything  to  the  exact  letter 
of  ancient  Scripture— are  they  any  less  His  angels  to 
us  than  those  ministering  spirits  whom  Zechariah 
beheld  preventing  the  narrow  measures  of  the  poor 
apprentice  of  his  dream  ? 

To  the  Third  Vision  there  has  been  appended  the 
only  lyrical  piece  which  breaks  the  prose  narrative  of 
the  Visions.  We  have  already  seen  that  it  is  a  piece 
of  earlier  date.  Israel  is  addressed  as  still  scattered  to 
the  four  winds  of  heaven,  and  still  inhabiting  Babylon. 

'  Psalm  cxxii.  3. 


Zech.i.7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS   OF  ZECHARIAH  291 

While  in  Zechariah's  own  oracles  and  visions  Jehovah 
has  returned  to  Jerusalem,  His  return  according  to  this 
piece  is  still  future.  There  is  nothing  about  the 
Temple :  God's  holy  dwelling  from  which  He  has 
roused  Himself  is  Heaven.  The  piece  was  probably 
inserted  by  Zechariah  himself :  its  lines  are  broken 
by  what  seems  to  be  a  piece  of  prose,  in  which  the 
prophet  asserts  his  mission,  in  words  he  twice  uses 
elsewhere.     But  this  is  uncertain. 

i/o,    ho !      Flee   from    the    Land    of   the    North 

{oracle  of  Jehovah)  ; 
For  as  the  four  winds  have  I  spread  you  abroad^ 

(oracle  of  Jehovah). 
Ho!  to  Zion  escape,  thou  inhabitress  of  Babel} 
For  thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts  ^  to  the  nations  that 
plunder  you  (for  he  that  toucheth  you  toucheth  the  apple 
of  His  eye),  that,  lo  !  I  am  about  to  wave  My  hand  over 
them,  and  they  shall  be  plunder  to  their  own  servants,  and 
ye  shall  know  that  Jehovah  of  Hosts  hath  sent  me. 
Sing  out  and  rejoice,  O  daughter  of  Zion  ; 
For,  lo  !  I  come,  and  ivill  dwell  in  thy  midst  (oracle 

of  Jehovah). 
And  many  nations  shall  join  themselves  to  Jehovah 

in  that  day, 
And  shall  be  to  Him  *  a  people. 

^  Some  codd.  read  with  the  four  winds.  LXX.  from  the  four  winds 
will  I  gather  you  (avvd^u)  vfxds),  and  this  is  adopted  by  Wellhausen 
and  Nowack,  But  it  is  probably  a  later  change  intended  to  adapt  the 
poem  to  its  new  context. 

^  Dweller  of  the  daughter  of  Babel.  But  D^,  daughter^  is  mere 
dittography  of  the  termination  of  the  preceding  word, 

^  A  curious  phrase  here  occurs  in  the  Heb.  and  versions,  After 
glory  hath  He  sent  me,  which  we  are  probably  right  in  omitting. 
In  any  case  it  is  a  parenthesis,  and  ought  to  go  not  with  sent  me  but 
with  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts.  *  So  LXX.     Heb.  to  me. 


292  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

And  I  will  dwell  in  thy  midst 

{And  thou  shall  know  that  Jehovah  of  Hosts  hath 

sent  me  to  thee). 
And  Jehovah  will  make  Judah  His  heritage^ 
His  portion  shall  be  upon  holy  soil^ 
And  make  choice  once  more  of  Jerusalem. 
Silence^  all  flesh ,  before  Jehovah;^ 
For  He  hath  roused  Himself  up  from   His  holy 

dwelling. 

The  Fourth  Vision  :  The  High  Priest  and  the 
Satan  (Chap.  iii.). 

The  next  Visions  deal  with  the  moral  condition  of 
Israel  and  their  standing  before  God.  The  Fourth  is 
a  judgment  scene.  The  Angel  of  Jehovah,  who  is  not 
to  be  distinguished  from  Jehovah  Himself,^  stands  for 
judgment,  and  there  appear  before  him  Joshua  the 
High  Priest  and  the  Satan  or  Adversary  who  has 
come  to  accuse  him.  Now  those  who  are  accused  by 
the  Satan — see  next  chapter  of  this  volume  upon  the 
Angels  of  the  Visions — are,  according  to  Jewish  belief, 
those  who  have  been  overtaken  by  misfortune.  The 
people  who  are  standing  at  God's  bar  in  the  person 
of  their  High  Priest  still  suffer  from  the  adversity 
in  which  Haggai  found  them,  and  the  continuance  of 
which  so  disheartened  them  after  the  Temple  had 
begun.  The  evil  seasons  and  poor  harvests  tormented 
their  hearts  with  the  thought  that  the  Satan  still 
slandered  them  in   the  court  of  God.     But  Zechariah 

*  Cf.  Zeph.  i.  7;  Hab.  ii.  20.  "Among  the  Arabians,  after  the 
slaughter  of  the  sacrificial  victim,  the  participants  stood  for  some 
time  in  silence  about  the  altar.  That  was  the  moment  in  which  the 
Deity  approached  in  order  to  take  His  share  in  the  sacrifice " 
(Smend,  A.   T.  Rel.  Gesch.,  p.   124).  '^  Cf.  vv.  i  and  2. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS  OF  ZECHARIAH  293 

comforts  them  with  the  vision  of  the  Satan  rebuked. 
Israel  has    indeed    been    sorely  beset    by    calamity,   a 
brand  much  burned,  but  now  of  God's  grace  plucked 
from  the   fire.      The  Satan's   role   is   closed,    and    he 
disappears  from  the  Vision.^     Yet  something  remains  : 
Israel   is   rescued,    but    not    sanctified.      The   nation's 
troubles  are   over  :    their  uncleanness  has  still    to  be 
removed.      Zechariah   sees    that   the    High    Priest   is 
clothed  in  filthy  garments,  while  he  stands  before  the 
Angel  of  Judgment.     The  Angel  orders  his  servants, 
those  that  stand  before  him^  to  give  him  clean  festal 
robes.      And   the  prophet,  breaking  out   in  sympathy 
with  what  he  sees,  for  the  first  time  takes  part  in  the 
Visions.     Then  I  said,  Let  them  also  put  a  clean  turban 
on  his  head — the  turban  being  the  headdress,  in  Ezekiel 
of  the  Prince  of  Israel,  and  in  the  Priestly  Code  of  the 
High  Priest.^     This   is  done,   and  the  national  effect 
of   his    cleansing    is    explained    to    the    High    Priest. 
If  he    remains  loyal  to    the   law  of  Jehovah,   he,   the 
representative  of  Israel,  shall  have  right  of  entry  to 
Jehovah's  presence  among  the  angels  who  stand  there. 
But    more,    he   and    his    colleagues    the    priests    are  a 
portent  of  the  coming  of  the  Messiah — the  Servant  of 
Jehovah,  the  Branchy  as  he   has  been  called  by  many 
prophets."^     A  stone  has  already  been  set  before  Joshua, 

'  See  below,  p.  318. 

^  In  this  Vision  the  verb  to  stand  before  is  used  in  two  technical 
senses  :  {a)  of  the  appearance  of  plaintiff  and  defendant  before  their 
judge  (vv.  I  and  3)  ;  {b)  of  servants  before  their  masters  (vv.  4  and  7). 

^  See  below,  p.  294,  n,  7. 

^  Isa.  iv.  2,  xi.  i;  Jer.  xxiii.  5,  xxxiii.  15;  Isa.  liii.  2.  Stade 
{Gesch.  des  Volkes  Isr.,  II.  125),  followed  by  Marti  {Der  Proph.  Sack., 
85  n.),  suspects  the  clause  /  will  bring  in  My  Servant  the  Branch  as  a 
later  interpolation,  entangling  the  construction  and  finding  in  this 
section  no  further  justification. 


\ 


X 


294  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

with  seven  eyes  upon  it.  God  will  engrave  it  with 
inscriptions,  and  on  the  same  day  take  away  the  guilt 
of  the  land.  Then  shall  be  the  peace  upon  which 
Zechariah  loves  to  dwell. 

And  he  showed  me  Joshua,  the  high  priest,  standing 
before  the  Angel  of  Jehovah,  and  the  Satan^  standing 
at  his  right  hand  to  accuse  him}  And  Jehovah  ^  said 
to  the  Satan :  Jehovah  rebuke  thee,  O  Satan  !  Jehovah 
who  makes  choice  of  Jerusalem  rebuke  thee  I  Is  not 
this  a  brand  saved  from  the  fire  ?  But  Joshua  was 
clothed  in  foul  garments  while  he  stood  before  the  Angel. 
And  he — the  Angel — answered  and  said  to  those  who 
stood  in  his  presence,  Take  the  foul  garments  from  off  him 
{and  he  said  to  him,  See,  I  have  made  thy  guilt  to  pass 
away  from  thee),^  and  clothe  him  ^  in  fresh  clothing. 
And  I  said,^  Let  them  put  a  clean  turban ''  on  his  head. 

*  Or  Adversary,  see  p.  317. 

^  To  Satan  htm  :  slander,  or  accuse,  him. 

^  That  is  the  Angel  of  Jehovah,  which  Wellhausen  and  Nowack 
read;  but  see  below,  p.  314. 

■•  This  clause  interrupts  the  Angel's  speech  to  the  servants. 
Wellh.  and  Nowack  omit  it,     T'lVH  \    cf.  2  Sam.  xii.  13;  Job  vii.  21. 

^  So  LXX.  Heb.  has  a  degraded  grammatical  form,  clothe  thyself 
which  has  obviously  been  made  to  suit  the  intrusion  of  the  previous 
clause,  and  is  therefore  an  argument  against  the  authenticity  of  the 
latter. 

^  LXX.  omits  /  said  and  reads  Let  them  put  as  another  imperative, 
Do  ye  put,  following  on  the  two  of  the  previous  verse,  Wellhausen 
adopts  this  (reading  ^C^^  for  ID'*^^).  Though  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  1DN1  dropped  out  of  the  text  if  once  there,  it  is  equally  so  to 
understand  why  if  not  original  it  was  inserted.  The  whole  passage 
has  been  tampered  with.  If  we  accept  the  Massoretic  text,  then  we 
have  a  sympathetic  interference  in  the  vision  of  the  dreamer  himself 
which  is  very  natural;  and  he  speaks,  as  is  proper,  not  in  the  direct, 
but  indirect,  imperative.  Let  them  ptit. 

'  ^y^,  the  headdress  of  rich  women  (Isa.  iii.  23),  as  of  eminent 
men  (Job  xxix.  14),  means  something  wound  round  and  round  the 
head  (cf.  the  use  of  PjJV   to  form    like  a  ball  in   Isa.   xxii.  18,  and 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS   OF  ZECHARIAH  295 

And  they  put  the  clean  turban  upon  his  head,  and  clothed 
him  with  garments^  the  Angel  of  Jehovah  standing  up 
the  while/     And  the  Angel  of  Jehovah   certified  unto 
Joshua^  saying:  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  If  in  My 
ways  thou  walkest,  and  if  My  charges  thou  keepest   in 
charge,  then  thou  also  shalt  judge  My  house,  and  have 
charge  of  My  courts,  and  I  will  give  thee  entry  ^  among 
these   who   stand  in   My  presence.      Hearken    now,    O 
Joshua,  high  priest,  thou  and  thy  fellows  who  sit  before 
thee  are  men  of  omen,  that,  lo  I  I  am  about  to  bring 
My  servant^  Branch.     For  see  the  stone   which  I  have 
set  before  Joshua,  one  stone  with  seven  eyes}     Lo,  I  will 
etch  the   engraving  upon  it  (oracle  of  Jehovah),   and  I 
will  wash  away  the  guilt  of  that  land  in  one  day.     In 
that  day  {oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts)  ye  ivill  invite  one 
another  in  under  vine  and  under  fig-tree. 

The  theological  significance  of  the  Vision  is  as  clear 
as  its  consequences  in  the  subsequent  theology  and 
symbohsm  of  Judaism.  The  uncleanness  of  Israel 
which  infests  their  representative  before  God  is  not 
defined.      Some^   hold    that   it   includes    the    guilt   of 

the  use  of  K^2n  (to  wind)  to  express  the  putting  on  of  the  head- 
dress (Ezek.  xvi.  10,  etc.).  Hence  turban  seems  to  be  the  proper 
rendering.  Another  form  from  the  same  root,  nS^VG,  is  the  name 
of  the  headdress  of  the  Prince  of  Israel  (Ezek.  xxi.  31)  ;  and  in  the 
Priestly  Codex  of  the  Pentateuch  the  headdress  of  the  high  priest 
(Exod.  xxviii.  37,  etc.). 

*  Wellhausen  takes  the  last  words  of  ver.  5  with  ver,  6,  reads  ID^ 
and  renders  And  the  Angel  of  Jehovah  stood  up  or  stepped  forward. 
But  even  if  ^DJ?  be  read,  the  order  of  the  words  would  require 
translation  in  the  pluperfect,  which  would  come  to  the  same  as  the 
original  text.  And  if  Wellhausen's  proposal  were  correct  the  words 
Angel  of  Jehovah  in  ver.  6  would  be  superfluous. 

-  Read  D ^3^^(10  (Smend,  A.  T.  Rel.  Gesch.,  p.  324,  n.  2).  '*' 

^  Ov facets. 

*  E.g.  Marti,  Der  Prophet  Sacharja,  p.  83. 


296  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Israel's  idolatry.     But  they  have  to  go  back  to  Ezekiel 
for  this,   and  we  have  seen  that   Zechariah   nowhere 
mentions    or   feels    the    presence   of    idols    among  his 
people.    The  Vision  itself  supplies  a  better  explanation. 
Joshua's  filthy   garments    are    replaced   by   festal  and 
official  robes.     He  is  warned  to  walk  in  the  whole  law 
of  the  Lord,  ruling  the  Temple  and  guarding  Jehovah's 
court.     The  uncleanness  was  the  opposite  of  all  this. 
It  was  not  ethical  failure :  covetousness,  greed,  immor- 
ality.    It  was,  as  Hagg^i  protested,  the  neglect  of  the 
Temple,  and  of  the  whole  worship  of  Jehovah.     If  this 
be  now  removed,  in  all  fidehty  to  the  law,  the  High 
Priest  shall  have  access  to  God,  and  the  Messiah  will 
come.    The  High  Priest  himself  shall  not  be  the  Messiah 
— this    dogma   is  left    to   a  later    age  to   frame.       But 
before  God  he  will  be  as  one  of  the  angels,  and  himself 
and  his  faithful  priesthood  omens  of  the  Messiah.     We 
need   not    linger    on    the  significance    of  this    for   the 
place  of  the  priesthood  in   later  Judaism.     Note  how 
the  High  Priest  is  already  the  religious  representative 
of  his  people  :  their  uncleanness   is  his  ;   when   he  is 
pardoned   and    cleansed,    the   uncleanness   of  the   land 
is    purged   away.     In    such  a    High    Priest   Christian 
theology  has  seen  the  prototype  of  Christ. 

The  stone  is  very  difficult  to  explain.  Some  have 
thought  of  it  as  the  foundation-stone  of  the  Temple, 
which  had  already  been  employed  as  a  symbol  of  the 
Messiah  and  which  played  so  important  a  part  in  later 
Jewish  symbolism.^  Others  prefer  the  top-stone  of 
the  Temple,  mentioned  in  chap.  iv.  7,^  and  others  an 
altar  or  substitute  for  the  ark.^     Again,  some  take  it 

^  Hitzig,  Wright  and  many  others.     On  the  place  of  this  stone  in 
the  legends  of  Judaism  see  Wright,  pp.  75  f. 

2  Ewald,  Marcus  Dods.  »  Von  Orelli,  Volck. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE    VISIONS   OF  ZECHARIAH  297 


to  be  a  jewel,  either  on  the  breastplate,  of  the  High 
Priest/  or  upon  the  crown  afterwards  prepared  for 
Zerubbabel.^  To  all  of  these  there  are  objections. 
It  is  difficult  to  connect  with  the  foundation-stone 
an  engraving  still  to  be  made ;  neither  the  top-stone 
of  the  Temple,  nor  a  jewel  on  the  breastplate  of  the 
priest,  nor  a  jewel  on  the  king's  crown,  could  properly 
be  said  to  be  set  before  the  High  Priest.  We  must 
rather  suppose  that  the  stone  is  symbolic  of  the  finished 
Temple.^  The  Temple  is  the  full  expression  of  God's 
providence  and  care — His  seven  eyes.  Upon  it  shall 
His  will  be  engraved,  and  by  its  sacrifices  the  unclean- 
ness  of  the  land  shall  be  taken  away. 

The   Fifth    Vision  :   The    Temple    Candlestick  and 
THE  Two  Olive-Trees  (Chap.  iv.). 

As  the  Fourth  Vision  unfolded  the  dignity  and 
significance  of  the  High  Priest,  so  in  the  Fifth  we  find 
discovered  the  joint  glory  of  himself  and  Zerubbabel,  the 
civil  head  of  Israel.  And  to  this  is  appended  a  Word 
for  Zerubbabel  himself.  In  our  present  text  this  Word 
has  become  inserted  in  the  middle  of  the  Vision, 
vv.  6b-ioa;  in  the  translation  which  follows  it  has 
been  removed  to  the  end  of  the  Vision,  and  the  reasons 
for  this  will  be  found  in  the  notes. 

The  Vision  is  of  the  great  golden  lamp  which  stood 
in  the  Temple.  In  the  former  Temple,  light  was 
supplied  by  ten  several  candlesticks."^  But  the  Levitical 
Code  ordained  one  seven-branched  lamp,  and  such 
appears    to    have    stood    in    the    Temple    built    while 

'  Bredenkamp. 

'^  Wellhausen,  itt  loco,  and  Smend,  A.  T.  Rel.  Gesch.,  345. 

3  So  Marti,  p.  88. 

■•  I  Kings  vii.  49. 


298  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Zechariah   was   prophesying.^      The    lamp    Zechariah 
sees   has   also   seven    branches,    but   differs   in    other 
respects,  and  especially  in  some  curious  fantastic  details 
only  possible  in  dream  and  symbol.     Its  seven  lights 
were  fed  by  seven  pipes  from  a  bowl  or  reservoir  of 
oil  which  stood  higher  than  themselves,  and  this  was 
fed,  either  directly  from  two  olive-trees  which  stood  to 
the   right  and    left   of  it,    or,    if  ver.   12  be   genuine, 
by  two  tubes  which  brought  the   oil  from  the   trees. 
The  seven  lights  are  the  seven  eyes  of  Jehovah — if, 
as  Vv^e  ought,  we  run  the  second  half  of  ver.  lo  on  to 
the  first  half  of  ver.  6.     The  pipes  and  reservoir  are 
given    no    symbolic    force;    but  the   olive-trees    which 
feed   them  are    called   the  two  sons  of  oil  which  stand 
before  the  Lord  of  all  the  earth.     These  can  only  be  the 
two   anointed    heads    of  the   community — Zerubbabel, 
the  civil  head,  and  Joshua,  the  religious  head.      Theirs 
was  the  equal  and  co-ordinate  duty  of  sustaining  the 
Temple,  figured  by  the  whole  candelabrum,  and  ensuring 
the  brightness  of  the  sevenfold  revelation.     The  Temple, 
that  is  to  say,  is  nothing  without  the  monarchy  and 
the  priesthood  behind  it ;  and  these  stand  in  the  imme- 
diate presence  of  God.     Therefore  this  Vision,  which  to 
the  superficial  eye  might  seem  to  be  a  glorification  of 
the  mere  machinery  of  the  Temple  and   its   ritual,  is 
rather  to  prove  that  the  latter  derive  all  their  power  from 
the  national  institutions  which  are  behind  them,  from  the 
two  representatives  of  the  people  who  in  their  turn  stand 
before  God  Himself     The  Temple  so  near  completion 
will  not  of  itself  reveal  God  :  let  not  the  Jews  put  their 
trust  in  it,  but  in  the  life  behind  it.     And  for  ourselves 
the  lesson  of  the  Vision  is  that  which  Christian  theology 

'   I  Mace,  i.  21  ;  iv.  49,  50.     Josephus,  XIV.  Ant.  iv.  4. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS  OF  ZECHARIAH  299 

has  been  so  slow  to  learn,  that  God's  revelation  under 
the  old  covenant  shone  not  directly  through  the 
material  framework,  but  was  mediated  by  the  national 
life,  whose  chief  men  stood  and  grew  fruitful  in  His 
presence. 

One  thing  is  very  remarkable.  The  two  sources  of 
revelation  are  the  King  and  the  Priest,  The  Prophet 
is  not  mentioned  beside  them.  Nothing  could  prove 
more  emphatically  the  sense  in  Israel  that  prophecy 
was  exhausted. 

The  appointment  of  so  responsible  a  position  for 
Zerubbabel  demanded  for  him  a  special  promise  of 
grace.  And  therefore,  as  Joshua  had  his  promise  in 
the  Fourth  Vision,  we  find  Zerubbabel's  appended  to 
the  Fifth.  It  is  one  of  the  great  sayings  of  the  Old 
Testament :  there  is  none  more  spiritual  and  more 
comforting.  Zerubbabel  shall  complete  the  Temple, 
and  those  who  scoffed  at  its  small  beginnings  in  the 
day  of  small  things  shall  frankly  rejoice  when  they 
see  him  set  the  top-stone  by  plummet  in  its  place. 
As  the  moral  obstacles  to  the  future  were  removed 
in  the  Fourth  Vision  by  the  vindication  of  Joshua 
and  by  his  cleansing,  so  the  political  obstacles,  all  the 
hindrances  described  by  the  Book  of  Ezra  in  the 
building  of  the  Temple,  shall  disappear.  Before  Zerub- 
babel the  great  mountain  shall  become  a  plain.  And 
this,  because  he  shall  not  work  by  his  own  strength, 
but  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts  shall  do  everything. 
Again  we  find  that  absence  of  expectation  in  human 
means,  and  that  full  trust  in  God's  own  direct  action, 
which  characterise  all  the  prophesying  of  Zechariah. 

Then  the  angel  who  talked  with  me  returned  and  roused 
me  like  a  man  roused  out  of  his  sleep.  And  he  said  to 
mey  What  seest  thou  ?    And  I  saidy  I  see,  and  lo  !  a 


THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 


candlestick  all  of  gold,  and  its  bowl  upon  the  top  of  it, 
and  its  seven  lamps  on  it,  and  seven  ^  pipes  to  the  lamps 
which  are  upon  it.  And  two  olive-trees  stood  over  against 
it,  one  on  the  right  of  the  bowl^  and  one  on  the  left. 
And  I  began  ^  and  said  to  the  angel  who  talked  ivith  me,^ 
What  be  these,  my  lord?  And  the  angel  who  talked 
with  me  answered  and  said,  Knowest  thou  not  what 
these  be  ?  And  I  said.  No,  my  lord!  And  he  answered 
and  said  to  me,^  These  seven  are  the  eyes  of  Jehovah, 
which  sweep  through  the  whole  earth.  And  I  asked  and 
said  to  him.  What  are  these  two  olive-trees  on  the  right 
of  the  candlestick  and  on  its  left?  And  again  I  asked 
and  said  to  him.  What  are  the  two  olive-branches  which 
are  beside  the  two  golden  tubes  that  pour  forth  the  oiP 
from  them  ?  ^  And  he  said  to  me,  Knowest  thou  not  what 
these  be?  And  I  said,  No,  my  lord!  And  he  said. 
These  are  the  two  sons  of  oil  which  stand  before  the  Lord 
of  all  the  earth. 

This  is  JehovaKs    Word  to  Zerubbabel,  and  it  says :  ^ 
Not  by  might,  and  not  by  force,  but  by  My  Spirit,  saith 

^  LXX.     Heb.  has  seven  sevens  of  pipes. 
^  Wellhausen  reads  its  right  and  deletes  the  boivl. 
^  jVi^V    njy  is  not  only  to  answer^  but  to  take  part  in  a  conversation, 
whether  by  starting  or  continuing  it.     LXX.  rightly  iirrjpwTtjaa. 

*  Heb.  saying. 

^  In  the  Hebrew  text,  followed  by  the  ancient  and  modern  versions, 
including  the  English  Bible,  there  here  follows  6b-ioa,  the  Word  to 
Zerubbabel.  They  obviously  disturb  the  narrative  of  the  Vision,  and 
Wellhausen  has  rightly  transferred  them  to  the  end  of  it,  where  they 
come  in  as  naturally  as  the  word  of  hope  to  Joshua  comes  in  at  the 
end  of  the  preceding  Vision.  Take  them  away,  and,  as  can  be  seen 
above,  ver.  lob  follows  quite  naturally  upon  6a. 

«  Heb.  gold.     So  LXX. 

'  Wellhausen  omits  the  whole  of  this  second  question  (ver.  12)  as 
intruded  and  unnecessary.  So  also  Sniend  as  a  doublet  on  ver.  H 
(A.  T.  Rel.  Gesch.,  343  n.).     So  also  Nowack. 

*  Heb.  saying. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS  OF  ZECHARIAH  301 

Jehovah  of  Hosts.  What  art  thou,  O  great  mountain  ? 
Before  Zerubbabel  be  thou  level !  And  he  ^  shall  bring 
forth  the  top-stone  with  shoutings,  Grace,  grace  to  it!"^ 
And  the  Word  of  Jehovah  came  to  me,  saying.  The  hands 
of  Zerubbabel  have  founded  this  house,  and  his  hands 
shall  complete  it,  and  thou  shall  know  that  Jehovah  of 
Hosts  hath  sent  me  to  you.  For  whoever  hath  despised 
the  day  of  small  things,  they  shall  rejoice  when  they  see 
the  plummet  ^  in  the  hand  of  Zerubbabel. 

The  Sixth  Vision  :  The  Winged  Volume 
(Chap.  V.   1-4). 

The  religious  and  political  obstacles  being  now 
removed  from  the  future  of  Israel,  Zechariah  in  the 
next  two  Visions  beholds  the  land  purged  of  its  crime 
and  wickedness.  These  Visions  are  very  simple,  if 
somewhat  after  the  ponderous  fashion  of  Ezekiel. 

The  first  of  them  is  the  Vision  of  the  removal  of  the 
curse  brought  upon  the  land  by  its  civic  criminals, 
especially  thieves  and  perjurers — the  two  forms  which 
crime  takes  in  a  poor  and  rude  community  like  the 
colony  of  the  returned  exiles.  The  prophet  tells  us 
he  beheld  a  roll  flying.  He  uses  the  ordinary  Hebrew 
name  for  the  rolls  of  skin  or  parchment  upon  which 
writing  was  set  down.  But  the  proportions  of  its 
colossal  size — twenty  cubits  by  ten — prove  that  it  was 
not  a  cylindrical  but  an  oblong  shape  which  he  saw. 
It  consisted,  therefore,  of  sheets  laid  on  each  other  like 

>  LXX.  /. 

-  Or  Fair,  fair  is  it  I     Nowack. 

3  The  stone,  the  leaden.  Marti,  St.  u.  Kr.,  1892,  p.  213  n.,  takes  the 
leaden  for  a  gloss,  and  reads  simply  the  stone,  i.e.  the  top-stone  ;  but 
the  plummet  is  the  last  thing  laid  to  the  building  to  test  the  straight- 
ness  of  the  top-stone. 


302  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

our  books,  and  as  our  word  "  volume,"  which  originally 
meant,  like  his  own  term,  a  roll,  means  now  an  oblong 
article,  we  may  use  this  in  our  translation.  The  volume 
is  the  record  of  the  crime  of  the  land,  and  Zechariah 
sees  it  flying  from  the  land.  But  it  is  also  the  curse 
upon  this  crime,  and  so  again  he  beholds  it  entering 
every  thief's  and  perjurer's  house  and  destroying  it. 
Smend  gives  a  possible  explanation  of  this :  "  It 
appears  that  in  ancient  times  curses  were  written  on 
pieces  of  paper  and  sent  down  the  wind  into  the 
houses "  ^  of  those  against  whom  they  were  directed. 
But  the  figure  seems  rather  to  be  of  birds  of  prey. 

And  I  turned  and  lifted  my  eyes  and  looked,  and  lo  ! 
a  volume'^  flying.  And  he  said  unto  me,  What  dost  thou 
see?  And  I  saidy  I  see  a  volume  flying,  its  length 
twenty  cubits  and  its  breadth  ten.  And  he  said  unto 
me,  This  is  the  curse  that  is  going  out  upon  the  face 
of  all  the  land.  For  every  thief  is  hereby  purged  away 
from  hence^  and  every  perjurer  is  hereby  purged  away 

'  A.T.  Rel.  Gesch.,  312  n. 

^  tDn?JD,  roll  or  volume.     LXX.  dpiiravov,  sickle,  75^. 

^  A  group  of  difficult  expressions.  The  verb  Hj^J  is  Ni.  of  a 
root  which  originally  had  the  physical  meaning  to  clean  out  of  a 
place,  and  this  Ni.  is  so  used  of  a  plundered  town  in  Isa.  iii.  26. 
But  its  more  usual  meaning  is  to  be  spoken  free  from  guilt  (Psalm 
xix.  14,  etc.).  Most  commentators  take  it  here  in  the  physical  sense, 
Hitzig  quoting  the  use  of  Kadapi^u)  in  Mark  vii.  19.  '"}i^3  HTD 
are  variously  rendered.  HTD  is  mostly  understood  as  locative,  he7tce, 
i.e.  from  the  land  just  mentioned,  but  some  take  it  with  steal  (Hitzig), 
some  with  cleaned  out  {Ewald,  Orelli,  etc.),  C''^^?  ''^  rendered  like  it 
— the  flying  roll  (Ewald,  Orelli),  which  cannot  be,  since  the  roll  flies 
upon  the  face  of  the  land,  and  the  sinner  is  to  be  purged  out  of  it ; 
or  in  accordance  with  the  roll  or  its  curse  (Jerome,  Kohler).  But 
Wellhausen  reads  H^D  njDj  and  takes  nfPJ  in  its  usual  meaning 
and  in  the  past  tense,  and  renders  Every  thief  has  for  long  remained 
utipunished ;  and  so  in  the  next  clause.  So,  too,  Nowack,  LXX. 
Every  thief  shall  be  condemned  to  death,  ews  davdrov  eKSidrjcyeTai. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS  OF  ZECHARIAH  303 

from  hence.  I  have  sent  it  forth — oracle  of  Jehovah  of 
Hosts — and  it  shall  enter  the  thief  s  house^  and  the 
house  of  him  that  hath  sworn  falsely  by  My  name^  and 
it  shall  roost  ^  in  the  midst  of  his  house  and  consume  ity 
with  its  beams  and  its  stones? 

The  Seventh  Vision  :    The  Woman   in   the   Barrel 
(Chap.  V.   5-1 1 ). 

It  is  not  enough  that  the  curse  fly  from  the  land 
after  destroying  every  criminal.  The  living  principle 
of  sin,  the  power  of  temptation,  must  be  covered  up 
and  removed.  This  is  the  subject  of  the  Seventh 
Vision. 

The  prophet  sees  an  ephah,  the  largest  vessel  in  use 
among  the  Jews,  of  more  than  seven  gallons  capacity, 
and  round  ^  like  a  barrel.  Presently  the  leaden  top  is 
lifted,  and  the  prophet  sees  a  woman  inside.  This  is 
Wickedness,  feminine  because  she  figures  the  power 
of  temptation.  She  is  thrust  back  into  the  barrel, 
the  leaden  lid  is  pushed  down,  and  the  whole  carried 
off  by  two  other  female  figures,  winged  like  the  strong, 
far-flying  stork,  into  the  land  of  Shin'ar,  "which  at 
that  time  had  the  general  significance  of  the  counter- 
part of  the  Holy  Land,"  *  and  was  the  proper  home 
of  all  that  was  evil. 

And  the  angel  of  Jehovah  who  spake  with  me  came 


'  Heb.  lodge,  pass  the  night :  cf.  Zeph.  ii.  14  (above,  p.  65),  pelican 
and  bittern  shall  roost  upon  the  capitals. 

^  Smend  sees  a  continuation  of  Ezekiel's  idea  of  the  guilt  of  man 
overtaking  him  (iii,  20,  xxxiv.).     Here  God's  curse  does  all. 

^  This  follows  from  the  shape  of  the  disc  that  fits  into  it.  Seven 
gallons  are  seven-eighths  of  the  English  bushel :  that  in  use  in 
Canada  and  the  United  States  is  somewhat  smaller. 

*  Ewald. 


304  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

forward^  and  said  to  me^  Lift  now  thine  eyes  and  see 
what  this  is  that  comes  forth.  And  I  said,  What  is  it  ? 
And  he  said,  This  is  a  bushel  coming  forth.  And  he  said. 
This  is  their  transgression  ^  in  all  the  land?  And  behold  I 
the  round  leaden  top  was  lifted  up,  and  lo  !^  a  woman 
sitting  inside  the  bushel.  And  he  said,  This  is  the 
Wickedness,  and  he  thrust  her  back  into  the  bushel,  and 
thrust  the  leaden  disc  upon  the  mouth  of  it.  And  I  lifted 
mine  eyes  and  looked,  and  lo  I  two  women  came  forth  with 
the  wind  in  their  wings,  for  they  had  wings  like  storks' 
wings,  and  they  bore  the  bushel  betwixt  earth  and  heaven. 
And  I  said  to  the  angel  that  talked  with  me,  M^hither  do 
they  carry  the  bushel  ?  And  he  said  to  me,  To  build  it 
a  house  in  the  land  of  Shinar,  that  it  may  be  fixed  and 
brought  to  rest  there  on  a  place  of  its  own.^ 

We  must  not  allow  this  curious  imagery  to  hide 
from  us  its  very  spiritual  teaching.  If  Zechariah  is 
weighted  in  these  Visions  by  the  ponderous  fashion 
of  Ezekiel,  he  has  also  that  prophet's  truly  moral  spirit. 
He  is  not  contented  with  the  ritual  atonement  for  sin, 

'  Upon  the  stage  of  vision. 

-  For  Heb.  DJ^V  read  DJiy  with  LXX. 

3  By  inserting  nS''X  after  HD  i^  ^'^r.  5,  and  deleting  nXWH 
.  .  .  ■))0S''1  in  ver.  6,  Wellhausen  secures  the  more  concise  text : 
And  see  what  this  bushel  is  that  comes  forth.  And  I  said,  What  is  it? 
And  he  said,  That  is  the  evil  of  the  people  in  the  whole  land.  But  to 
reduce  the  redundancies  of  the  Visions  is  to  delete  the  most  character- 
istic feature  of  their  style.  Besides,  Wellhausen's  result  gives  no 
sense.  The  prophet  would  not  be  asked  to  see  what  a  bushel  is : 
the  angel  is  there  to  tell  him  this.  So  Wellhausen  in  his  translation 
has  to  omit  the  HD  of  ver.  5,  while  telling  us  in  his  note  to  replace 
nD''Nn  after  it.  His  emendation  is,  therefore,  to  be  rejected.  Nowack, 
however,  accepts  it. 

*  LXX.     Heb.  this. 

*  In  the  last  clause  the  verbal  forms  are  obscure  if  not  corrupt. 
LXX.  Koi  ?rot/Aa<rat  koX  d-qcovaiv  airo  iKei  =  QK^  plj^^^l  l^^'??]  ^"*' 
see  Ewald,  Syntax,  131  fl^. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS   OF  ZECHARIAH  305 

nor  with  the  legal  punishment  of  crime.  The  Uving 
power  of  sin  must  be  banished  from  Israel ;  and  this 
cannot  be  done  by  any  efforts  of  men  themselves,  but 
by  God's  action  only,  which  is  thorough  and  effectual. 
If  the  figures  by  which  this  is  illustrated  appear  to  us 
grotesque  and  heavy,  let  us  remember  how  they  would 
suit  the  imagination  of  the  prophet's  own  day.  Let  us 
lay  to  heart  their  eternally  valid  doctrine,  that  sin  is 
not  a  formal  curse,  nor  only  expressed  in  certain  social 
crimes,  nor  exhausted  by  the  punishment  of  these,  but, 
as  a  power  of  attraction  and  temptation  to  all  men,  it 
must  be  banished  from  the  heart,  and  can  be  banished 
only  by  God. 

The  Eighth  Vision  :  The  Chariots  of  the  Four 
Winds  (Chap.  vi.  1-8). 

As  the  series  of  Visions  opened  with  one  of  the  uni- 
versal providence  of  God,  so  they  close  with  another  of 
the  same.  The  First  Vision  had  postponed  God's  over- 
throw of  the  nations  till  His  own  time,  and  this  the 
Last  Vision  now  describes  as  begun,  the  religious  and 
moral  needs  of  Israel  having  meanwhile  been  met  by 
the  Visions  which  come  between,  and  every  obstacle  to 
God's  action  for  the  deliverance  of  His  people  being 
removed. 

The  prophet  sees  four  chariots,  with  horses  of  dif- 
ferent colour  in  each,  coming  out  from  between  two 
mountains  of  brass.  The  horsemen  of  the  First 
Vision  were  bringing  in  reports  :  these  chariots  are 
coming  forth  with  their  commissions  from  the  presence 
of  the  Lord  of  all  the  earth.  They  are  the  four  winds 
of  heaven,  servants  of  Him  who  maketh  the  winds  His 
angels.  They  are  destined  for  different  quarters  of 
the  world.     The    prophet   has   not    been   admitted   to 

VOL.    II.  20 


3o6  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  Presence,  and  does  not  know  what  exactly  they 
have  been  commissioned  to  do ;  that  is  to  say, 
Zechariah  is  ignorant  of  the  actual  political  processes 
by  which  the  nations  are  to  be  overthrown  and  Israel 
glorified  before  them.  But  his  Angel-interpreter  tells 
him  that  the  black  horses  go  north,  the  white  west, 
and  the  dappled  south,  while  the  horses  of  the  fourth 
chariot,  impatient  because  no  direction  is  assigned  to 
them,  are  ordered  to  roam  up  and  down  through  the 
earth.  It  is  striking  that  none  are  sent  eastward.^ 
This  appears  to  mean  that,  in  Zechariah's  day,  no 
power  oppressed  or  threatened  Israel  from  that  direc- 
tion ;  but  in  the  north  there  was  the  centre  of  the 
Persian  Empire,  to  the  south  Egypt,  still  a  possible 
master  of  the  world,  and  to  the  west  the  new  forces 
of  Europe  that  in  less  than  a  generation  were  to  prove 
themselves  a  match  for  Persia.  The  horses  of  the 
fourth  chariot  are  therefore  given  the  charge  to  exercise 
supervision  upon  the  whole  earth — unless  in  ver.  7  we 
should  translate,  not  earth,  but  land,  and  understand 
a  commission  to  patrol  the  land  of  Israel.  The  centre 
of  the  world's  power  is  in  the  north,  and  therefore  the 
black  horses,  which  are  dispatched  in  that  direction, 
are  explicitly  described  as  charged  to  bring  God's 
spirit,  that  is  His  anger  or  His  power,  to  bear  on  that 
quarter  of  the  world. 

And  once  more  ^  /  lifted  mine  eyes  and  looked,  and  lo  ! 
four  chariots  coming  forward  from  between  two  moun- 
tains, and  the  mountains  were  mountains  of  brass.     In 


1  Wellhausen  suggests  that  in  the  direction  assigned  to  the  white 
horses,  D^lirii^  (ver.  6),  which  we  have  rendered  westward,  we  might 
read  DIpH  yi5<,  land  of  the  east)  and  that  from  ver.  7  the  west  has 
probably  fallen  out  after  they  go  forth. 

*  Heb.  /  turned  again  and. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS   OF  ZECHARIAH  307 

the  first  chariot  were  brown  horses^  and  in  the  second 
chariot  black  horses^  and  in  the  third  chariot  white 
horseSy  and  in  the  fourth  chariot  dappled  .  .  .^  horses. 
And  I  broke  in  and  said  to  the  angel  who  talked  with 
me^  What  are  these y  my  lord?  And  the  angel  answered 
and  said  to  me^  These  be  the  four  winds  of  heaven  that 
come  forth  from  presenting  themselves  before  the  Lord  of 
all  the  earth?  That  with  the  .black  horses  goes  forth  to 
the  land  of  the  north,  while  the  white  go  out  west^  (?),  and 
the  dappled  go  to  the  land  of  the  south.  And  the  ...  * 
go  forth  and  seek  to  go,  to  march  up  and  doivn  on  the 
earth.  And  he  said^  Go,  march  up  and  down  on  the 
earth;  and  they  marched  up  and  down  on  the  earth. 
And  he  called  me  and  spake  to  me,  saying,  See  they  that 
go  forth  to  the  land  of  the  north  have  brought  my  spirit 
to  bear  ^  on  the  land  of  the  north. 

The  Result  of  the  Visions  :  The  Crowning  of  the 
King  of  Israel  (Chap.  vi.  9-15). 

The  heathen  being  overthrown,  Israel  is  free,  and 
may  have  her  king  again.  Therefore  Zechariah  is 
ordered — it  would  appear  on  the  same  day  as  that  on 
which  he  received  the  Visions — to  visit  a  certain 
deputation  from  the  captivity  in  Babylon,  Heldai, 
Tobiyah  and  Yedayah,  at  the  house  of  Josiah  the  son 

*  Hebrew  reads  D''^PX,  strong ;  LXX.  xpapoi,  dappled,  and  for  the 
previous  D''T12  spotted  or  dappled,  it  reads  irotKiXoi,  piebald.  Perhaps 
we  should  read  CVCfl  (cf.  Isa.  Ixiii.  i),dark  red  or  sorrel,  vvith^;-^ 
spots.     So  Ewald  and  Orelli.     Wright  keeps  strong. 

2  Wellhausen,   supplying  -p  before   y2"l^?,   renders    These  go  forth 
to  the  four  winds  of  heaven  after  they  have  presented  themselves,  etc. 
^  Heb.  behind  them. 

*  D''VD^<,  the  second  epithet  of  the  horses  of  the  fourth  chariot, 
ver.  3.     See  note  there. 

^  Or  anger  to  bear,  Heb.  rest. 


3o8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

of  Zephaniah,  where  they  have  just  arrived  ;  and  to 
select  from  the  gifts  they  have  brought  enough  silver 
and  gold  to  make  circlets  for  a  crown.  The  present 
text  assigns  this  crown  to  Joshua,  the  high  priest,  but 
as  we  have  already  remarked,  and  will  presently  prove 
in  the  notes  to  the  translation,  the  original  text  assigned 
it  to  Zerubbabel,  the  civil  head  of  the  community,  and 
gave  Joshua,  the  priest,  a  place  at  his  right  hand — the 
two  to  act  in  perfect  concord  with  each  other.  The 
text  has  suffered  some  other  injuries,  which  it  is  easy 
to  amend  ;  and  the  end  of  it  has  been  broken  off  in 
the  middle  of  a  sentence. 

And  the  Word  oj  Jehovah  came  to  me,  saying :  Take 
from  the  Golah^  from  Heldai  ^  and  from  Tobiyah  and 
from  Yedayah  ;  and  do  thou  go  on  the  same  day,  yea,  go 
thou  to  the  house  of  Yosiyahu,  son  of  Sephanyah,  whither 
they  have  arrived  from  Babylon?  And  thou  shalt  take 
silver  and  gold,  and  make  a  crown,  and  set  it  on  the  head 
of .  .  }     And  say  to  him  :  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts, 

1  The  collective  name  for  the  Jews  in  exile, 

-  LXX.  irapa  tQv  apxbvTwv,  D'''l'np  •  but  since  an  accusative  is 
wanted  to  express  the  articles  taken,  Hitzig  proposes  to  read  '^ipHP^ 
My  precious  things.  The  LXX.  reads  the  other  two  names  koL  irapa, 
TUP  xP^cr^Mt^"  avTijs  Kal  irapa  twv  iireyviaKoruiv  avT-qv. 

^  The  construction  of  ver.  lo  is  very  clumsy;  above  it  is  rendered 
literally.  Wellhausen  proposes  to  delete  and  do  thou  go  .  .  .  to  the 
house  of,  and  take  Yosiyahu's  name  as  simply  a  fourth  with  the  others, 
reading  the  last  clause  ivho  have  come  front  Babylon.  This  is  to  cut, 
not  disentangle,  the  knot. 

*  The  Hebrew  text  here  has  Joshua  son  ofjehosadak,  the  high  priest, 
but  there  is  good  reason  to  suppose  that  the  crown  was  meant  for 
Zerubbabel,  but  that  the  name  of  Joshua  was  inserted  instead  in  a 
later  age,  when  the  high  priest  was  also  the  king — see  below,  note. 
For  these  reasons  Ewald  had  previously  supposed  that  the  whole  verse 
was  genuine,  but  that  there  had  fallen  out  of  it  the  words  and  on  the 
head  of  Zerubbabel.  Ewald  found  a  proof  of  this  in  the  plural  form 
mor,   which    he   rendered    crowns.      (So    also  Wildeboer,   A.   T, 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.]      THE   VISIONS  OF  ZECHARIAH  309 

Lo  !  a  man  called  Branch;  from  his  roots  shall  a  branch 
come,  and  he  shall  build  the  Temple  of  Jehovah.  Yea,  he 
shall  build  Jehovah's  Temple,'^  and  he  shall  wear  the  royal 
majesty  and  sit  and  rule  upon  his  throne,  and  Joshua  ^ 
shall  be  priest  on  his  right  hand^  and  there  will  be  a  counsel 
of  peace  between  the  two  of  them}  And  the  crown  shall 
be  for  Heldai  ^  and  Tobiyah  and  Yedayah,  and  for  the 
courtesy^  of  the  son  of  Sephanyah,  for  a  memorial  in 
the  Temple  of  Jehovah,  And  the  far-away  shall  come 
and  build  at  the  Temple  of  Jehovah,  and  ye  shall  know 
that  Jehovah  of  Hosts  hath  sent  me  to  you;  and  it  shall 
be  if  ye  hearken  to  the  voice  of  Jehovah  yeur  God  .  .  J 

Litteratm',  p.  297.)  But  n"l"lDy  is  to  be  rendered  crown  ;  see  ver.  il, 
where  it  is  followed  by  a  singular  verb.  The  plural  form  refers 
to  the  several  circlets  of  which  it  was  woven. 

1  Some  critics  omit  the  repetition. 

2  So  Wellhausen  proposes  to  insert.  The  name  was  at  least  under- 
stood in  the  original  text. 

3  So  LXX.     Heb.  on  his  throne. 

*  With  this  phrase,  vouched  for  by  both  the  Heb.  and  the  Sept., 
the  rest  of  the  received  text  cannot  be  harmonised.  There  were  two  : 
one  is  the  priest  just  mentioned  who  is  to  be  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
crowned.  The  received  text  makes  this  crowned  one  to  be  the  high 
priest  Joshua.  But  if  there  are  two  and  the  priest  is  only  secondary, 
the  crowned  one  must  be  Zerubbabel,  whom  Haggai  has  already 
designated  as  Messiah.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  see  why,  in  a  later  age, 
when  the  high  priest  was  sovereign  in  Israel,  Joshua's  name  should 
have  been  inserted  in  place  of  Zerubbabel's,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
phr&se priest  at  his  right  hand,  to  which  the  LXX.  testifies  in  harmony 
with  the  two  of  them,  should  have  been  altered  to  the  reading  of  the 
receivred  text,  priest  upon  his  throne.  With  the  above  agree  Smend, 
A.  T.  Rel.  Gesch.,  343  n.,  and  Nowack. 

^  Heb.  D^rij  rielem,  but  the  reading  Heldai,  n?n,  is  proved  by  the 
previous  occurrence  of  the  name  and  by  the  LXX.  reading  here,  rots 
VTro/Ji4vov<nv,  i.e.  from  root  IPfl,  to  last. 

^  "in,  but  Wellhausen  and  others  take  it  as  abbreviation  or  mis- 
reading for  the  name  of  Yosiyahu  (see  ver.   lo). 

'  Here  the  verse  and  paragraph  break  suddenly  off  in  the  middle 
of  a  sentence.     On  the  passage  see  Smend,  343  and  345. 


CHAPTER   XXII 

THE  ANGELS  OF  THE   VISIONS 

Zechariah  i.  7 — vi.  8 

AMONG  the  influences  of  the  Exile  which  contributed 
the  material  of  Zechariah's  Visions  we  included 
a  considerable  development  of  Israel's  belief  in  Angels. 
The  general  subject  is  in  itself  so  large,  and  the  Angels 
play  so  many  parts  in  the  Visions,  that  it  is  necessary 
to  devote  to  them  a  separate  chapter. 

From  the  earliest  times  the  Hebrews  had  conceived 
their  Divine  King  to  be  surrounded  by  a  court  of 
ministers,  who  besides  celebrating  His  glory  went  forth 
from  His  presence  to  execute  His  will  upon  earth.  In 
this  latter  capacity  they  were  called  Messengers, 
Male'akim,  which  the  Greeks  translated  Angeloi,  and 
so  gave  us  our  Angels.  The  origin  of  this  conception  is 
wrapt  in  obscurity.  It  may  have  been  partly  due  to 
a  belief,  shared  by  all  early  peoples,  in  the  existence 
of  superhuman  beings  inferior  to  the  gods,^  but  even 
without  this  it  must  have  sprung  up  in  the  natural 
tendency  to  provide  the  royal  deity  of  a  people  with  a 
court,  an  army  and  servants.  In  the  pious  minds  of 
early  Israel  there  must  have  been  a  kind  of  necessity 
to  believe  and  develop  this — a  necessity  im^ostd  firstly 
by  the  belief  in  Jehovah's  residence  as  confined  to  one 

'  So  Robertson  Smith,  art.  "Angels"  in  the  Encyc.  Brit,  9th  ed. 
310 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.  8]      THE  ANGELS  OF  THE   VISIONS  311 

spot,  Sinai  or  Jerusalem,  from  which  He  Himself  went 
forth  only  upon  great  occasions  to  the  deliverance  of 
His  people  as  a  whole  ;  and  secondly  by  the  unwilling- 
ness to  conceive  of  His  personal  appearance  in  missions 
of  a  menial  nature,  or  to  represent  Him  in  the  human 
form  in  which,  according  to  primitive  ideas.  He  could 
alone  hold  converse  with  men. 

It  can  easily  be  understood  how  a  religion,  which  was 
above  all  a  religion  of  revelation,  should  accept  such 
popular  conceptions  in  its  constant  record  of  the  appear- 
ance of  God  and  His  Word  in  human  life.  Accordingly, 
in  the  earliest  documents  of  the  Hebrews,  we  find  angels 
who  bring  to  Israel  the  blessings,  curses  and  commands  of 
Jehovah.^  Apart  from  this  duty  and  their  human  appear- 
ance, these  beings  are  not  conceived  to  be  endowed 
either  with  character  or,  if  we  may  judge  by  their  name- 
lessness,^  with  individuality.  They  are  the  Word  of 
God  personified.  Acting  as  God's  mouthpiece,  they  are 
merged  in  Him,  and  so  completely  that  they  often  speak 
of  themselves  by  the  Divine  L^  ''  The  function  of  an 
Angel  so  overshadows  his  personality  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment does  not  ask  who  or  what  this  Angel  is,  but  what  he 
does.  And  the  answer  to  the  last  question  is,  that  he 
represents  God  to  man  so  directly  and  fully  that  when 
he  speaks  or  acts  God  Himself  is  felt  to  speak  or  act."  * 
Besides  the  carriage  of  the  Divine  Word,  angels  bring 
back  to  their  Lord  report  of  all  that  happens  :  kings  are 
said,  in  popular  language,  to  be  as  wise  as  the  wisdom  of 
an  angel  of  God,  to  know  all  the  things  that  are  in  the  earth.^ 
They  are  also  employed  in  the  deliverance  and  discipline 

^  So  already  in  Deborah's  Song,  Judg.  v.  23,  and  throughout  both 
J  and  E. 

-  Cf.  especially  Gen.  xxxii.  29.  ^  Robertson  Smith,  as  above. 

^  Judg.  vi.  12  ff.  ^2  Sam.  xiv.  20. 


312  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

of  His  people/  By  them  come  the  pestilence,^  and  the 
restraint  of  those  who  set  themselves  against  God's 
will.3 

Now  the  prophets  before  the  Exile  had  so  spiritual 
a  conception  of  God,  worked  so  immediately  from  His 
presence,  and  above  all  were  so  convinced  of  His 
personal  and  practical  interest  in  the  affairs  of  His 
people,  that  they  felt  no  room  for  Angels  between  Him 
and  their  hearts,  and  they  do  not  employ  Angels,  except 
when  Isaiah  in  his  inaugural  vision  penetrates  to  the 
heavenly  palace  and  court  of  the  Most  High.*  Even 
when  Amos  sees  a  plummet  laid  to  the  walls  of  Jerusalem, 
it  is  by  the  hands  of  Jehovah  Himself,^  and  we  have 
not  encountered  an  Angel  in  the  mediation  of  the  Word 
to  any  of  the  prophets  whom  we  have  already  studied. 
But  Angels  reappear,  though  not  under  the  name,  in  the 
visions  of  Ezekiel,  the  first  prophet  of  the  Exile.  They 
are  in  human  form,  and  he  calls  them  Men.  Someexecute 
God's  wrath  upon  Jerusalem,^  and  one,  whose  appear- 
ance is  as  the  appearance  of  brass,  acts  as  the  interpreter 
of  God's  will  to  the  prophet,  and  instructs  him  in  the 
details  of  the  building  of  City  and  Temple.''  When  the 
glory  of  Jehovah  appears  and  Jehovah  Himself  speaks 
to  the  prophet  out  of  the  Temple,  this  Man  stands  by 
the  prophet,^  distinct  from  the  Deity,  and  afterwards 
continues  his  work  of  explanation.  '^  Therefore,"  as 
Dr.  Davidson  remarks,  'Mt  is  not  the  sense  of  distance 


'  Exod.  xiv.  19  (?),  xxiii.  20,  etc.;  Josh.  v.  13. 

^  2  Sam.  xxiv.  16,  17;  2  Kings  xix.  35;  Exod.  xii.  23.  In  Eccles. 
V.  6  this  destroying  angel  is  the  minister  of  God  :  cf.  Psalm  Ixxviii.  496, 
hurtful  angels— Cheyne,  Origin  0/ Psalter,  p.  157. 

*  Balaam  :  Num.  xxii.  23,  31.         *  ix. 

*  vi,  2-6.  ^  xl.  3  ff. 
^  Vol.  I.,  p.  114.  *  xliii.  6. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.  8]      THE  ANGELS  OF  THE   VISIONS  313 

to  which  God  is  removed  that  causes  Ezekiel  to  create 
these  intermediaries."  The  necessity  for  them  rather 
arises  from  the  same  natural  feeh'ng,  which  we  have 
suggested  as  giving  rise  to  the  earhest  conceptions 
of  Angels  :  the  unwillingness,  namely,  to  engage  the 
Person  of  God  Himself  in  the  subordinate  task  of 
explaining  the  details  of  the  Temple.  Note,  too,  how 
the  Divine  Voice,  which  speaks  to  Ezekiel  out  of  the 
Temple,  blends  and  becomes  one  with  the  Man  standing 
at  his  side.  Ezekiel's  Angel-interpreter  is  simply  one 
function  of  the  Word  of  God. 

Many  of  the  features  of  Ezekiel's  Angels  appear  in 
those  of  Zechariah.  The  four  smiths  or  smiters  of  the 
four  horns  recall  the  six  executioners  of  the  wicked  in 
Jerusalem.-^  Like  Ezekiel's  Interpreter,  they  are  called 
Men^  and  like  him  one  appears  as  Zechariah's  instructor 
and  guide  :  he  who  talked  with  me?  But  while  Zechariah 
calls  these  beings  Men^  he  also  gives  them  the  ancient 
name,  which  Ezekiel  had  not  used,  of  Male'akim,  mes- 
sengers^ angels.  The  Instructor  is  the  Angel  who  talked 
with  me.  In  the  First  Vision,  the  Man  riding  the  brown 
horse ^  the  Man  that  stood  among  the  myrtles y  is  the  Angel 
of  Jehovah  that  stood  among  the  myrtles.^  The  Inter- 
preter is  also  called  the  Angel  of  Jehovah  ^  and  if  our  text 
of  the  First  Vision  be  correct,  the  two  of  them  are 
curiously  mingled,  as  if  both  were  functions  of  the  same 
Word  of  God,  and  in  personality  not  to  be  distin- 
guished from  each  other.  The  Reporting  Angel  among 
the    myrtles   takes    up    the    duty    of   the    Interpreting 


1  Zech.  i.  18  ff.;  Ezek.  ix.  i  ff. 

'■^  Zech.  i.  8  :  so  even  in  the   Book  of  Daniel  we  have   the   man 
Gabriel — ix.  21. 

^  i.  9,  19  ;  ii.  3 ;  iv.  i,  4,  5  ;  v.  5,10;  vi.  4.    But  see  above,  pp.261  f. 
*  i.  8,  10,  II. 


314  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Angel  and  explains  the  Vision  to  the  prophet.  In  the 
Fourth  Vision  this  dissolving  view  is  carried  further, 
and  the  Angel  of  Jehovah  is  interchangeable  with 
Jehovah  Himself;^  just  as  in  the  Vision  of  Ezekiel  the 
Divine  Voice  from  the  Glory  and  the  Man  standing 
beside  the  prophet  are  curiously  mingled.  Again  in 
the  Fourth  Vision  we  hear  of  those  who  stand  hi  the 
presence  of  Jehovah^  and  in  the  Eighth  of  executant 
angels  coming  out  from  His  presence  with  commissions 
upon  the  whole  earth.^ 

In  the  Visions  of  Zechariah,  then,  as  in  the  earher 
books,  we  see  the  Lord  of  all  the  earth,  surrounded  by 
a  court  of  angels,  whom  He  sends  forth  in  human  form 
to  interpret  His  Word  and  execute  His  will,  and  in 
their  doing  of  this  there  is  the  same  indistinctness  of 
individuality,  the  same  predominance  of  function  over 
personality.  As  with  Ezekiel,  one  stands  out  more 
clearly  than  the  rest,  to  be  the  prophet's  interpreter, 
whom,  as  in  the  earlier  visions  of  angels,  Zechariah 
calls  my  lord^^  but  even  he  melts  into  the  figures  of 
the  rest.  These  are  the  old  and  borrowed  elements  in 
Zechariah's  doctrine  of  Angels.  But  he  has  added  to 
them  in  several  important  particulars,  which  make  his 
Visions  an  intermediate  stage  between  the  Book  of 
Ezekiel  and  the  very  intricate  angelology  of  later 
Judaism. 

In  the  first  place,  Zechariah  is  the  earHest  prophet 
who  introduces  orders  and  ranks  among  the  angels. 
In  his  Fourth  Vision  the  Angel  of  Jehovah  is  the  Divine 
Judge  before  whom^  Joshua  appears  with  the  Adversary. 

^  iii.  I  compared  with  2.  ^  vi.  5. 

-  iii.  6,  7.  ■*  i.  9,  etc. 

*  iii.  I.  Stand  before  is  here  used  forensically  :  cf.  the  N.T.  phrases 
to  stand  before  God,  Rev.  xx.  12;  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ, 
Rom.  xiv.  10 ;  and  be  acquitted,  Luke  xxi.  36. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.  8]      THE  ANGELS  OF  THE   VISIONS  315 

He  also  has  others  standing  before  him  ^  to  execute  his 
sentences.  In  the  Third  Vision,  again,  the  Interpreting 
Angel  does  not  communicate  directly  with  Jehovah,  but 
receives  his  words  from  another  Angel  who  has  come 
forth. ^  All  these  are  symptoms,  that  even  with  a 
prophet,  who  so  keenly  felt  as  Zechariah  did  the  ethical 
directness  of  God's  word  and  its  pervasiveness  through 
public  life,  there  had  yet  begun  to  increase  those 
feelings  of  God's  sublimity  and  awfulness,  which  in 
the  later  thought  of  Israel  lifted  Him  to  so  far  a 
distance  from  men,  and  created  so  complex  a  host  of 
intermediaries,  human  and  superhuman,  between  the 
worshipping  heart  and  the  Throne  of  Grace.  We  can 
best  estimate  the  difference  in  this  respect  between 
Zechariah  and  the  earlier  prophets  whom  we  have 
studied  by  remarking  that  his  characteristic  phrase 
talked  with  me^  literally  spake  in  or  by  me,  which  he  uses 
of  the  Interpreting  Angel,  is  used  by  Habakkuk  of  God 
Himself.^  To  the  same  awful  impressions  of  the  God- 
head is  perhaps  due  the  first  appearance  of  the  Angel 
as  intercessor.  Amos,  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  themselves 
directly  interceded  with  God  for  the  people  ;  but  with 
Zechariah  it  is  the  Interpreting  Angel  who  intercedes, 
and  who  in  return  receives  the  Divine  comfort.*  In  this 
angelic  function,  the  first  of  its  kind  in  Scripture,  we 
see  the  small  and  explicable  beginnings  of  a  belief 
destined  to  assume  enormous  dimensions  in  the 
development  of  the  Church's  worship.  The  supplica- 
tion of  Angels,  the  faith  in  their   intercession  and  in 

^  in.  4.     Here  the  phrase  is  used  domestically  of  servants  in  the 
presence  of  their  master.     See  above,  p.  293,  n.  2. 

'  ii.  3.  4. 

^  Hab.  ii.  i :  of.  also  Num.  xii.  6-9. 

*  First  Vision,  i.  12. 


3i6  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  prevailing  prayers  of  the  righteous  dead,  which 
has  been  so  egregiously  multipHed  in  certain  sections 
of  Christendom,  may  be  traced  to  the  same  increasing 
sense  of  the  distance  and  awfulness  of  God,  but  is 
to  be  corrected  by  the  faith  Christ  has  taught  us  of 
the  nearness  of  our  Father  in  Heaven,  and  of  His 
immediate  care  of  His  every  human  child. 

The  intercession  of  the  Angel  in  the  First  Vision  is 
also  a  step  towards  that  identification  of  special  Angels 
with  different  peoples  which  we  find  in  the  Book  ot 
Daniel.  This  tells  us  of  heavenly  princes  not  only 
for  Israel — Michael,  your  prince,  the  great  prince  which 
standeth  up  for  the  children  of  thy  people^ — but  for  the 
heathen  nations,  a  conception  the  first  beginnings 
of  which  we  see  in  a  prophecy  that  was  perhaps 
not  far  from  being  contemporaneous  with  Zechariah.^ 
Zechariah's  Vision  of  a  hierarchy  among  the  angels  was 
also  destined  to  further  development.  The  head  of  the 
patrol  among  the  myrtles,  and  the  Judge-Angel  before 
whom  Joshua  appears,  are  the  first  Archangels.  We 
know  how  these  were  further  specialised,  and  had  even 
personalities  and  names  given  them  by  both  Jewish  and 
Christian  writers.^ 

Among  the  Angels  described  in  the  Old  Testament, 
we  have  seen  some  charged  with  powers  of  hindrance 
and  destruction — a  troop  of  angels  of  evil}  They  too 
are  the  servants  of  God,  who  is  the  author  of  all  evil 
as  well  as  good,"  and  the  instruments  of  His  wrath. 


'    X.  21,  XU.   I. 

*  Isa.  xxiv.  21. 

^  Book  of  Daniel  x.,  xii.  ;  Tobit  xii.   15  ;  Book  of  Enoch  passim; 
Jude  9 ;  Rev.  viii.  2,  etc. 

*  Psalm  Ixxviii.  49.     See  above,  p.  312,  n.  2. 

*  Amos  iii,  6. 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.  8]      THE  ANGELS   OF  THE   VISIONS  317 

But  the  temptation  of  men  is  also  part  of  His 
Providence.  Where  wilful  souls  have  to  be  misled, 
the  spirit  who  does  so,  as  in  Ahab's  case,  comes  from 
Jehovah's  presence.^  All  these  spirits  are  just  as 
devoid  of  character  and  personality  as  the  rest  of  the 
angelic  host.  They  work  evil  as  mere  instruments : 
neither  malice  nor  falseness  is  attributed  to  themselves. 
They  are  not  rebel  nor  fallen  angels,  but  obedient  to 
Jehovah.  Nay,  like  Ezekiel's  and  Zechariah's  Angels 
of  the  Word,  the  Angel  who  tempts  David  to  number 
the  people  is  interchangeable  with  God  Himself.^ 
Kindred  to  the  duty  of  tempting  men  is  that  of  dis- 
cipline, in  its  forms  both  of  restraining  or  accusing 
the  guilty,  and  of  vexing  the  righteous  in  order  to  test 
them.  For  both  of  these  the  same  verb  is  used,  "  to 
satan,"  ^  in  the  general  sense  of  withstanding ^  or  an- 
tagonising. The  Angel  of  Jehovah  stood  in  Balaam's 
way  to  satan  him}  The  noun,  the  Satan,  is  used 
repeatedly  of  a  human  foe.^  But  in  two  passages, 
of  which  Zechariah's  Fourth  Vision  is  one,  and  the 
other  the  Prologue  to  Job,^  the  name  is  given  to  an 
Angel,  one  of  the  sons  of  Elohim,  or  Divine  powers 
who  receive  their  commission  from  Jehovah.  The 
noun  is  not  yet,  what  it  afterwards  became,^  a  proper 
name  ;  but  has  the  definite  article,  the  Adversary  or 
Accuser — that   is,  the   Angel    to   whom  that    function 

'  I  Kings  xxii.  20  ff. 

2  2  Sam.  xxiv.  I  ;  i  Chron.  xxi.  i.  Though  here  difference  of  age 
between  the  two  documents  may  have  caused  the  difference  of  view. 

^  There  are  two  forms  of  the  verb,  IDC^,  satan,  and  DD^,  satam,  the 
latter  apparently  the  older. 

^  Num.  xxii.  22,  32. 

^  I  Sam.  xxix.  4;  2  Sam.  xix.  23  Heb.,  22  Eng. ;  I  Kings  v.  18, 
xi.  14,  etc. 

«  Zech,  iii.  i  ff. ;  Job  i.  6  ff.  M  Chron.  xxi.  i. 


3i8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS' 

was  assigned.  With  Zechariah  his  business  is  the 
official  one  of  prosecutor  in  the  supreme  court  of 
Jehovah ,  and  when  his  work  is  done  he  disappears. 
Yet,  before  he  does  so,  we  see  for  the  first  time  in 
connection  with  any  angel  a  gleam  of  character.  This 
is  revealed  by  the  Lord's  rebuke  of  him.  There 
is  something  blameworthy  in  the  accusation  of 
Joshua :  not  indeed  false  witness,  for  Israel's  guilt 
is  patent  in  the  foul  garments  of  their  High  Priest, 
but  hardness  or  malice,  that  would  seek  to  prevent 
the  Divine  grace.  In  the  Book  of  Job  the  Satan  is 
also  a  function,  even  here  not  a  fallen  or  rebel 
angel,  but  one  of  God's  court,^  the  instrument  of 
discipline  or  chastisement.  Yet,  in  that  he  himself 
suggests  his  cruelties  and  is  represented  as  forward 
and  officious  in  their  infliction,  a  character  is  imputed 
to  him  even  more  clearly  than  in  Zechariah's  Vision. 
But  the  Satan  still  shares  that  identification  with  his 
function  which  we  have  seen  to  characterise  all  the 
angels  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  therefore  he  dis- 
appears from  the  drama  so  soon  as  his  place  in  its 
high  argument  is  over.^ 

In  this  description  of  the  development  of  Israel's 
doctrine  of  Angels,  and  of  Zechariah's  contributions 
to  it,  we  have  not  touched  upon  the  question  whether 
the  development  was  assisted  by  Israel's  contact  with 
the  Persian  religion  and  with  the  system  of  Angels  which 


1  i.  6b. 

^  See  Davidson  in  Cambridge  Bible  for  Schools  on  Job  i.  6-12, 
especially  on  ver,  9  :  "  The  Satan  of  this  book  may  show  the  begin- 
nings of  a  personal  malevolence  against  man,  but  he  is  still  rigidly 
subordinated  to  Heaven,  and  in  all  he  does  subserves  its  interests. 
H  s  function  is  as  the  minister  of  God  to  try  the  sincerity  of  man ; 
hence  when  his  work  of  trial  is  over  he  is  no  more  found,  and  no 
place  is  given  him  among  the  dramatis  personce  of  the  poem." 


Zech.  i.  7-vi.  8]      THE  ANGELS  OF  THE   VISIONS  319 

the  latter  contains.  For  several  reasons  the  question 
is  a  difficult  one.  But  so  far  as  present  evidence  goes, 
it  makes  for  a  negative  answer.  Scholars,  who  are  in 
no  way  prejudiced  against  the  theory  of  a  large  Persian 
influence  upon  Israel,  declare  that  the  religion  of 
Persia  affected  the  Jewish  doctrine  of  Angels  "  only  in 
secondary  points,"  such  as  their  ''  number  and  person- 
ality, and  the  existence  of  demons  and  evil  spirits."  ^ 
Our  own  discussion  has  shown  us  that  Zechariah's 
Angels,  in  spite  of  the  new  features  they  introduce, 
are  in  substance  one  with  the  Angels  of  pre-exilic 
Israel.  Even  the  Satan  is  primarily  a  function,  and 
one  of  the  servants  of  God.  If  he  has  developed  an 
immoral  character,  this  cannot  be  attributed  to  the 
influence  of  Persian  belief  in  a  Spirit  of  evil  opposed 
to  the  Spirit  of  good  in  the  universe,  but  may  be 
explained  by  the  native,  or  selfish,  resentment  of  Israel 
against  their  prosecutor  before  the  bar  of  Jehovah. 
Nor  can  we  fail  to  remark  that  this  character  of  evil 
appears  in  the  Satan,  not,  as  in  the  Persian  religion,  in 
general  opposition  to  goodness,  but  as  thwarting  that 
saving  grace  which  was  so  peculiarly  Jehovah's  own. 
And  Jehovah  said  to  the  Satan,  Jehovah  rebuke  thee^ 
O  Satan,  yea,  Jehovah  ivho  hath  chosen  Jerusalem  rebuke 
thee  I     Is  not  this  a  brand  plucked  from  the  burning  ? 

^  Cheyne,  The  Origin  of  the  Psalter,  p.  272.     Read  carefully  on  this 
point  the  very  important  remarks  on  pp.  270  ff.  and  281  f. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

''THE  SEED   OF  PEACE" 
Zechariah  vii.,  viii. 

THE  Visions  have  revealed  the  removal  of  the  guilt 
of  the  land,  the  restoration  of  Israel  to  their 
standing  before  God,  the  revival  of  the  great  national 
institutions,  and  God's  will  to  destroy  the  heathen  forces 
of  the  world.  With  the  Temple  built,  Israel  should 
be  again  in  the  position  which  she  enjoyed  before  the 
Exile.  Zechariah,  therefore,  proceeds  to  exhort  his 
people  to  put  away  the  fasts  which  the  Exile  had 
made  necessary,  and  address  themselves,  as  of  old,  to 
the  virtues  and  duties  of  the  civic  life.  And  he  intro- 
duces his  orations  to  this  end  by  a  natural  appeal  to 
the  experience  of  the  former   days. 

The  occasion  came  to  him  w^hen  the  Temple  had 
been  building  for  two  years,  and  when  some  of  its 
services  were  probably  resumed.-^  A  deputation  of  Jews 
appeared  in  Jerusalem  and  raised  the  question  of  the 
continuance  of  the  great  Fasts  of  the  Exile.  Who  the 
deputation  were  is  not  certain  :  probably  we  ought  to 
delete  Bethel  from  the  second  verse,  and  read  either 
El-sar'escr  sent  Regem-Melekh  and  his  men  to  the  house 
of  Jehovah  to  propitiate  Jehovah^  or  else  the  house  of 
El'Sar'eser  sent  Regem-Melekh  and  his  men  to  propitiate 

'  Cf.  chap.  vii.  3  :  the  priests  which  were  of  the  house  of  Jehovah. 
320 


Zech.  vii.,  viii.]        ''THE  SEED   OF  PEACE"  321 

Jehovah.  It  has  been  thought  that  they  came  from 
the  Jews  in  Babylon  :  this  would  agree  with  their  arrival 
in  the  ninth  month  to  inquire  about  a  fast  in  the  fifth 
month.  But  Zechariah's  answer  is  addressed  to  Jews 
in  Judaea.  The  deputation  limited  their  inquiry  to 
the  fast  of  the  fifth  month,  which  commemorated  the 
burning  of  the  Temple  and  the  City,  now  practically 
restored.  But  with  a  breadth  of  view  which  reveals 
the  prophet  rather  than  the  priest,  Zechariah  replies, 
in  the  following  chapter,  upon  all  the  fasts  by  which 
Israel  for  seventy  years  had  bewailed  her  ruin  and 
exile.  He  instances  two,  that  of  the  fifth  month, 
and  that  of  the  seventh  month,  the  date  of  the  murder 
of  Gedaliah,  when  the  last  poor  remnant  of  a  Jewish 
state  was  swept  away.^  With  a  boldness  which 
recalls  Amos  to  the  very  letter,  Zechariah  asks  his 
people  whether  in  those  fasts  they  fasted  at  all  to 
their  God.  Jehovah  had  not  charged  them,  and  in 
fasting  they  had  fasted  for  themselves,  just  as  in 
eating  and  drinking  they  had  eaten  and  drunken  to 
themselves.  They  should  rather  hearken  to  the  words 
He  really  sent  them.  In  a  passage,  the  meaning  of 
which  has  been  perverted  by  the  intrusion  of  the  eighth 
verse,  that  therefore  ought  to  be  deleted,  Zechariah 
recalls  what  those  words  of  Jehovah  had  been  in  the 
former  times  when  the  land  was  inhabited  and  the 
national  life  in  full  course.  They  were  not  ceremonial ; 
they  were  ethical  :  they  commanded  justice,  kindness, 
and  the  care  of  the  helpless  and  the  poor.  And  it 
was  in  consequence  of  the  people's  disobedience  to 
those  words  that  all  the  ruin  came  upon  them  for 
which  they  now  annually  mourned.  The  moral  is 
obvious  if  unexpressed.     Let  them  drop   their   fasts, 

'  Jer.  xli.  2 ;  2  Kings  xxv.  25. 
VOL,  II.  21 


322  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

and  practise  the  virtues  the  neglect  of  which  ha  i  made 
their  fasts  a  necessity.  It  is  a  sane  and  practical 
word,  and  makes  us  feel  how  much  Zechariah  has 
inherited  of  the  temper  of  Amos  and  Isaiah.  He  rests, 
as  before,  upon  the  letter  of  the  ancient  oracles,  but 
only  so  as  to  bring  out  their  spirit.  With  such  an 
example  of  the  use  of  ancient  Scripture,  it  is  deplorable 
that  so  many  men,  both  among  the  Jews  and  the 
Christians,  should  have  devoted  themselves  to  the 
letter  at  the  expense  of  the  spirit. 

And  it  came  to  pass  in  the  fourth  year  of  Darius  the 
king,  that  the  Word  of  Jehovah  came  to  Zechariah  on  the 
fourth  of  the  ninth  month,  Kislev.  For  there  sent  to 
the  house  of  Jehovah,  El-sar'eser  and  Regem-Melekh 
and  his  men^  to  propitiate  '^Jehovah,  to  ask  of  the  priests 
which  were  in  the  house  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts  and  of  the 
prophets  as  follows  :  Shall  I  weep  in  the  fifth  month 
with  fasting  as  I  have  now  done  so  many  years?  And 
the  Word  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts  came  to  me  :  Speak  now 
to  all  the  people  of  the  land,  and  to  the  priests,  saying: 
When  ye  fasted  and  mourned  in  the  fifth  and  in  the 
seventh  month^  and  this  for  seventy  years,  did  ye  fast  at 
all  to  Me  ?  And  when  ye  eat  and  when  ye  drink,  are  not 
ye  the  eaters  and  ye  the  drinkers?     Are  not  these  ^  the 

*  The  Hebrew  text  is  difficult  if  not  impossible  to  construe  :  For 
Bethel  sent  Sareser  (without  sign  of  accusative)  atid  Regeyn-Melekh 
and  his  men.  Wellhausen  points  out  that  Sar'eser  is  a  defective 
name,  requiring  the  name  or  title  of  deity  in  front  of  it,  and  Marti 
proposes  to  find  this  in  the  last  syllable  of  Bethel,  and  to  read 
'El-sar'eser.  It  is  tempting  to  find  in  the  first  syllable  of  Bethel  the 
remnant  of  the  phrase  to  the  house  of  Jehovah. 

^  To  stroke  the  face  of. 

^  The  fifth  month  Jerusalem  fell,  the  seventh  month  Gedaliah  was 
murdered  :  Jer.  Hi.  12  f. ;  2  Kings  xxv.  8  f.,  25. 

*  So  LXX.  Heb.  has  ace.  sign  before  words,  perhaps  implying 
Is  it  not  rather  necessary  to  do  the  words  ?  etc 


Zech.  vii.,  viii.]        '' THE  SEED   OF  PEACE"  323 

words  which  Jehovah  proclaimed  by  the  hand  of  the  former 
prophets^  when  Jerusalem  was  inhabited  and  at  peace^' 
with  her  cities  round  about  her,  and  the  Negeb  and  the 
Shephelah  were  inhabited? 

^  Thus  spake  Jehovah  of  Hosts  :  Judge  true  judgment^ 
and  practise  towards  each  other  kindness  and  mercy ; 
oppress  neither  widow  nor  orphan^  stranger  nor  poor ^  and 
think  not  evil  in  your  hearts  towards  one  another.  But 
they  refused  to  hearken,  and  turned  a  rebellious  shoulder ^^ 
and  their  ears  they  dulled  from  listening.  And  their 
heart  they  made  adamant^  so  as  not  to  hear  the  Torah 
and  the  words  which  Jehovah  of  Hosts  sent  through  His 
Spirit  by  the  hand  of  the  former  prophets ;  and  there 
was  great  wrath  from  Jehovah  of  Hosts.  And  it  came 
to  pass  thatj  as  He  had  called  and  they  heard  not,  so 
they  shall  call  and  I  will  not  hear,  said  Jehovah  of 
Hosts,  but  I  will  whirP  them  away  among  nations 
whom  they  know  not.  And  the  land  was  laid  waste 
behind  them,  without  any  to  pass  to  and  fro,  and  they 
made  the  pleasant  land  desolate. 

There  follow  upon  this  deliverance  ten  other  short 
oracles  :  chap.  viii.  Whether  all  of  this  decalogue  are 
to  be  dated  from  the  same  time  as  the  answer  to  the 
deputation  about  the  fasts  is  uncertain.  Some  of  them 
appear  rather  to  belong  to  an  earlier  date,  for  they 
reflect  the  situation,  and  even  the  words,  of  Haggai's 
oracles,  and  represent  the  advent  of  Jehovah  to 
Jerusalem   as    still   future.       But    they   return    to    the 


1  Omit  here  ver.  8,  And  the  Word  of  Jehovah  came  to  Zechariah,  say- 
ing. It  is  obviously  a  gloss  by  a  scribe  who  did  not  notice  that -the 
1D{<  riD  of  ver.  9  is  God's  statement  by  the  former  prophets. 

"^  Cf.  the  phrase  with  one  shoulder^  i.e.  unanimously. 

^  So  Heb.  and  LXX.  ;  but  perhaps  we  ought  to  point  and  I 
whirled  them  away,  taking  the  clause  with  the  next. 


324  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

question  of  the  fasts,  treating  it  still  more  compre- 
hensively than  before,  and  they  close  with  a  promise, 
fitly  spoken  as  the  Temple  grew  to  completion,  of  the 
coming  of  the  heathen  to  worship  at  Jerusalem. 

We  have  already  noticed  the  tender  charm  and 
strong  simplicity  of  these  prophecies,^  and  there  is  little 
now  to  add  except  the  translation  of  them.  As  with 
the  older  prophets,  and  especially  the  great  EvangeHst 
of  the  Exile,  they  start  from  the  glowing  love  of 
Jehovah  for  His  people,  to  which  nothing  is  impos- 
sible ;  ^  they  promise  a  complete  return  of  the 
scattered  Jews  to  their  land,  and  are  not  content 
except  with  the  assurance  of  a  world  converted  to 
the  faith  of  their  God.  With  Haggai  Zechariah 
promises  the  speedy  end  of  the  poverty  of  the  little 
colony  ;  and  he  adds  his  own  characteristic  notes  of 
a  reign  of  peace  to  be  used  for  hearty  labour,  bring- 
ing forth  a  great  prosperity.  Only  let  men  be  true 
and  just  and  kind,  thinking  no  evil  of  each  other, 
as  in  those  hard  days  when  hunger  and  the  fierce 
rivalry  for  sustenance  made  every  one's  neighbour 
his  enemy,  and  the  petty  life,  devoid  of  large  interests 
for  the  commonweal,  filled  their  hearts  with  envy  and 
malice.  For  ourselves  the  chief  profit  of  these  beau- 
tiful oracles  is  their  lesson  that  the  remedy  for  the 
sordid  tempers  and  cruel  hatreds,  engendered  by  the 
fierce  struggle  for  existence,  is  found  in  civic  and 
rehgious  hopes,  in  a  noble  ideal  for  the  national 
life,  and  in  the  assurance  that  God's  Love  is  at  the 
back  of  all,  with  nothing  impossible  to  it.  Amid 
these  glories,  however,  the  heart  will  probably  thank 
Zechariah    most     for    his    immortal     picture     of    the 

'  See  above,  pp.  271  f.  '^  Cf.  especially  Isa.  xl.  ff. 


Zech.  vii.,  viii.]         ''THE  SEED  OF  PEACE"  325 

Streets  of  the  new  Jerusalem  :  old  men  and  women 
sitting  in  the  sun,  boys  and  girls  playing  in  all  the 
open  places.  The  motive  of  it,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  found  in  the  circumstances  of  his  own  day. 
Like  many  another  emigration,  for  religion's  sake,  from 
the  heart  of  civilisation  to  a  barren  coast,  the  poor 
colony  of  Jerusalem  consisted  chiefly  of  men,  young 
and  in  middle  life.  The  barren  years  gave  no  en- 
couragement to  marriage.  The  constant  warfare  with 
neighbouring  tribes  allowed  few  to  reach  grey  hairs. 
It  was  a  rough  and  a  hard  society,  unblessed  by  the 
two  great  benedictions  of  life,  childhood  and  old  age. 
But  this  should  all  be  changed,  and  Jerusalem  filled 
with  placid  old  men  and  women,  and  with  joyous  boys 
and  girls.  The  oracle,  we  say,  had  its  motive  in 
Zechariah's  day.  But  what  an  oracle  for  these  times 
of  ours  !  Whether  in  the  large  cities  of  the  old  world, 
where  so  few  of  the  workers  may  hope  for  a  quiet  old 
age,  sitting  in  the  sun,  and  the  children's  days  of  play 
are  shortened  by  premature  toil  and  knowledge  of  evil ; 
or  in  the  newest  fringes  of  the  new  world,  where  men's 
hardness  and  coarseness  are,  in  the  struggle  for  gold, 
unawed  by  reverence  for  age  and  unsoftened  by  the 
fellowship  of  childhood, — Zechariah's  great  promise 
is  equally  needed.  Even  there  shall  it  be  fulfilled 
if  men  will  remember  his  conditions — that  the  first 
regard  of  a  community,  however  straitened  in  means, 
be  the  provision  of  religion,  that  truth  and  whole- 
hearted justice  abound  in  the  gates,  with  love  and 
loyalty  in  every  heart  towards  every  other. 

And  the  Word  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts  came,  saying: — 
I.   Thus  saith  Jehovah    of  Hosts:  I  am  jealous  for 
Zion  with  a  great  jealousy ^  and  with  great  anger  am  I 
jealous  for  her. 


326  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

2.  Tims  saith  Jehovah  :  I  am  returned  to  Zion,  and 
I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,  and  Jerusalem  shall 
be  called  the  City  of  Troth, ^  and  the  mountain  of  Jehovah 
of  Hosts  the  Holy  Mountain. 

3.  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts :  Old  men  and  old 
women  shall  yet  sit  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  each  with 
staff  in  hand,  for  fulness  of  days;  and  the  streets  of 
the  city  shall  be  full  of  boys  and  girls  playing  in  her 
streets. 

4.  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts  :  Because  it  seems  too 
wonderful  to  the  remnant  of  this  people  in  those  days, 
shall  it  also  seem  too  wonderful  to  Me  ? — oracle  of  Jehovah 
of  Hosts. 

5 .  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts :  Lo  !  I  am  about  to 
save  My  people  out  of  the  land  of  the  rising  and  out  of 
the  land  of  the  setting  of  the  sun  ;  and  I  will  bring  them 
home,  and  they  shall  dwell  in  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,  and 
they  shall  be  to  Me  for  a  people,^  and  I  will  be  to  them 
for  God,  in  troth  and  in  righteousness. 

6.  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts :  Strengthen  your 
hands,   O  ye  who  have  heard  in  such  days  such  words 

from  the  mouth  of  the  prophets,  since  ^  the  day  when  the 
House  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts  was  founded:  the  sanc- 
tuary was  to  be  built !  For  before  those  days  there  was 
no  gain  for  man,^  and  none  to  be  made  by  cattle;  and 
neither  for  him  that  went  out  nor  for  him  that  came  in  was 
there  any  peace  from  the  adversary,  and  I  set  every  man!s 
hand  against  his  neighbour.     But  not  now  as  in  the  past 


*  Isa.  i.  26. 

"^  Not  merely  My  people  (Wellhausen),  but  their  return  shall  con- 
stitute them  a  people  once  more.     The  quotation  is  from  Hosea  ii.  25. 
«  So  LXX. 

*  But  he  that  made  wages  made  them  to  put  them  into  a  bag  with 
holes,  Haggai  i.  6. 


Zech.  vii.,  viii.]        ''THE  SEED   OF  PEACE''  327 

days  am  I  towards  the  remnant  of  this  people — oracle  of 
Jehovah  of  Hosts.  For  I  am  sowing  the  seed  of  peace} 
The  vine  shall  yield  her  fruit,  and  the  land  yield  her 
increase,  and  the  heavens  yield  their  dew,  and  I  will 
give  them  all  for  a  heritage  to  the  remnant  of  this  people. 
And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  as  ye  have  been  a  curse 
among  the  nations,  O  house  of  Judah  and  house  of  Israel^ 
so  will  I  save  you  and  ye  shall  be  a  blessing  I  Be  not 
afraid,  strengthen  your  hands  ! 

7.  For  thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts  :  As  I  have  planned 
to  do  evil  to  you,  for  the  provocation  your  fathers  gave 
Me,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  and  did  not  relent,  so  have  I 
turned  and  planned  in  these  days  to  do  good  to  Jerusalem 
and  the  house  of  Judah.  Be  not  afraid  I  These  are  the 
things  which  ye  shall  do  :  Speak  truth  to  one  another; 
truth  and  wholesome  judgment  decree  ye  in  your  gates; 
and  plan  no  evil  to  each  other  in  your  hearts,  nor  take 
pleasure  in  false  swearing :  for  it  is  all  these  that  I  hate — 
oracle  of  Jehovah. 

And  the  Word  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts  came  to  me, 
saying : — 

8.  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts:  The  fast  of  the 
fourth  month,  and  the  fast  of  the  fifth,  and  the  fast  of 

the  seventh,  and  the  fast  of  the  tenth,  shall  become  to  the 
house  of  fudah  joy  and  gladness  and  happy  feasts?  But 
love  ye  truth  and  peace. 

9.  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts :  There  shall  yet  come 
peoples  and  citizens  of  great  cities ;    and  the  citizens  of 

•  Read  dAsJ^H  ni;nTN*  ^2  for  ^h^T\  yiT  O  of  the  text, /or  the  seed 
of  peace.  The  LXX.  makes  yiT  a  verb.  Cf.  Hosea  ii.  23  ff.,  which  the 
next  clauses  show  to  be  in  the  mind  of  our  prophet.  Klostermann 
and  Nowack  prefer  Dv^  '"^V"^-?  ^'^^  (^he  remnant's)  seed  shall  be  peace. 

'  In  the  tenth  month  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  had  begun  (2  Kings 
XXV.    1);    on   the  ninth   of  the   fourth    month  Jerusalem  was  taken 


328  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

one  a'ty^  will  go  to  another  a'ty,  saying:  ^^  Let  us  go  to 
propitiate  Jehovah^  and  to  seek  Jehovah  of  Hosts  f^ 
''  /  will  go  too  !  "  And  many  peoples  and  strong  nations 
shall  come  to  seek  Jehovah  of  Hosts  in  Jerusalem  and 
to  propitiate  Jehovah, 

lO.  Thus  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts :  In  those  days  ten 
men,  of  all  languages  of  the  nations,  shall  take  hold  of 
the  skirt  of  a  few  and  say,  We  will  go  with  you,  for  we 
have  heard  that  God  is  with  you. 


(Jcr.  xxxix.  2);  on  the  seventh  of  the  fifth  City  and  Temple  were 
burnt  down  (2  Kings  xxv.  8)  ;  in  the  seventh  month  Gedaliah  was 
assassinated  and  the  poor  relics  of  a  Jewish  state  swept  from  the 
land  (Jer.  xli.).     See  above,  pp.  30  ff. 

'  LXX.  the  citizens  of  five  cities  ivill  go  to  one. 


''MALACHP 


329 


Have  we  not  all  One  Father  ?  Why  then  are  we  unfaithful  to  each 
other ? 

The  lips  of  a  Priest  guard  knowledge,  and  men  seek  instruction  from 
his  mouth,  for  he  is  the  Angel  of fehovah  of  Hosts, 


330 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

THE  BOOK  OF  "MALA CHI" 

THIS  book,  the  last  in  the  arrangement  of  the 
prophetic  canon,  bears  the  title  :  Burden  or 
Oracle  of  the  Word  of  Jehovah  to  Israel  by  the  hand  of 
male' akhi.y/ SmcQ  at  least  the  second  century  of  our*^ 
era  the  word  has  been  understood  as  a  proper  name, 
Malachi  or  Malachias.  But  there  are  strong  objections 
to  this,  as  well  as  to  the  genuineness  of  the  whole  title, 
and  critics  now  almost  universally  agree  that  the  book 
was  originally  anonymous.  ^ 

It  is  true  that  neither  in  form  nor  in  meaning  is 
there  any  insuperable  obstacle  to  our  understanding 
"  male'akhi "  as  the  name  of  a  person.  If  so,  however, 
it  cannot  have  been,  as  some  have  suggested,  an  abbre- 
viation of  Male  'akhiyah,  for,  according  to  the  analogy 
of  other  names  of  such  formation,  this  could  only 
express  the  impossible  meaning  Jehovah  is  Angel} 
But,  as  it  stands,  it  might  have  meant  My  Angel 
or  Messenger,    or   it   may   be   taken    as   an   adjective, 


»  n^3i<'?D  or  "in''DN'?D.  To  judge  from  the  analogy  of  other  cases 
of  the  same  formation  {e.g.  Abiyah  =  Jehovah  is  Father,  and  not 
Father  of  Jehovah),  this  name,  if  ever  extant,  could  not  have  borne 
the  meaning,  which  Robertson  Smith,  Cornill,  Kirkpatrick,  etc.,  suppose 
it  must  have  done,  o£  Atigel  of  Jehovah.  These  scholars,  it  should  be 
added,  oppose,  for  various  reasons,  the  theory  that  it  is  a  proper 
name. 


332  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 


Angelicus}  Either  of  these  meanings  would  form  a 
natural  name  for  a  Jewish  child,  and  a  very  suitable 
one  for  a  prophet.  There  is  evidence,  however,  that 
some  of  the  earliest  Jewish  interpreters  did  not  think 
9f  the  title  as  containing  the  name  of  a  person. 
•The  Septuagint  read  by  the  hand  of  His  messenger,^ 
"  male'akho  "  ;  and  the  Targum  of  Jonathan,  while  re- 
taining '*  male'akhi,"  rendered  it  My  messenger^  adding 
that  it  was  Ezra  the  Scribe  who  was  thus  designated.^ 
This  opinion  was  adopted  by  Calvin.^ 

Recent  criticism  has  shown  that,  whether  the  word 
was  originally  intended  as  a  personal  name  or  not,  it 
was  a  purely  artificial  one  borrowed  from  chap.  iii.  i, 
Behold,  I  send  My  messenger,  "  male  'akhi,"  for  the  title, 
which  itself  has  been  added  by  the  editor  of  the  Twelve 
Prophets  in  the  form  in  which  we  now  have  them. 
The  pecuhar  words  of  the  title,  Burden  or  Oracle  of  the 
Word  of  Jehovah,  occur  nowhere  else  than  in  the  titles 
of  the  two  prophecies  which  have  been  appended  to 
the  Book  of  Zechariah,  chap.  ix.  i  and  chap.  xii.  i,  and 
immediately  precede  this  Book  of  "  Malachi."  In  chap, 
ix.  I  the  Word  of  Jehovah  belongs  to  the  text ;  Burden 
or  Oracle  has  been  inserted  before  it  as  a  title  ;  then  the 
whole  phrase  has  been  inserted  as  a  title  in  chap.  xii.  i. 
These  two  pieces  are  anonymous,  and  nothing  is  more 
Hkely  than  that  another   anonymous  prophecy  should 


*  Cf.  the  suggested  meaning  of  Haggai,  Festus.  Above,  p,  231. 
And  added  the  words,  lay  it  to  your  hearts :  iv  x^'-P'-  dyyeXov  avrov' 
diade  dr]  iirl  ras  KapSias  v/xQu.  Bachmann  (^A.  T.  Untersuch.,  Berlin, 
1894,  pp.  109  fi.)  takes  this  added  clause  as  a  translation  of  Jpi  •ID^b'lj 
and  suggests  that  it  may  be  a  corruption  of  an  original  373  IDB^i 
and  his  name  was  Kaleb.  But  the  reading  3f?n  -ID^bl  is  not  the 
exact  equivalent  of  the  Greek  phrase. 

'  Nn^D  N-1TV  n^OK^  npnn  ^ax^?? 


THE  BOOK  OF  "  MALACHI"  333 


have  received,  when  attached  to  them,  the  same  heading.^ 
*^e  argument  is  not  final,  but  it  is  the  most  probable 
explanation  of  the  data,  and  agrees  with  the  other  facts. 
The  cumulative  force  of  all  that  we  have  stated— the 
improbabiHty  of  male'akhi  being  a  personal  name,  the 
fact  that  the  earUest  versions  do  not  treat  it  as  such, 
the  obvious  suggestion  for  its  invention  in  the  male'akhi 
of  chap.  iii.  I,  the  absence  of  a  father's  name  and  place 
of  residence,  and  the  character  of  the  whole  title— is 
enough  for  the  opinion  rapidly  spreading  among  critics 
that  our  book  was,  like  so  much  more  in  the  Old 
Testament,  originally  anonymous.^  \/rhe  author  attacks 
the  religious  authorities  of  his  day ;  he  belongs  to  a 
pious  remnant  of  his  people,  who   are  overborne  and 

>  See    Stade,    Z.A.T.W.,    i88i,    p.    14;    1882,    p.   308;    Cornill, 
Einkitung,  4th  ed.,  pp.  207  f. 

t^So  (besides  Calvin,  who  takes  it  as  a  title)  even  Hengstenberg  in 
his  Christology  of  the  O.  T.,  Ewald,  Kuenen,  Reuss,  Stade,  Rob.  Smith, 
Cornill,  Wellhausen,  Kirkpatrick  (probably),  Wildeboer,Nowack.  On 
the  other  side  Hitzig,  Vatke,  Nagelsbach  and  Volck  (in  Herzog),  Von 
Orelli,  Pusey  and  Robertson  hold  it  to  be  a  personal  name— Pusey  with 
this  qualification,  "  that  the  prophet  may  have  framed  it  for  himself," 
similarly  Orelli.  They  support  their  opinion  by  the  fact  that  even 
the  LXX.  entitle  the  book  MaXaxtas ;  that  the  word  was  regarded 
as  a  proper  name  in  the  early  Church,  and  that  it  is  a  possible  name 
for  a  Hebrew.  In  opposition  to  the  hypothesis  that  it  was  borrowed 
from  chap.  iii.  I,  Hitzig  suggests  the  converse  that  in  the  latter  the 
prophet  plays  upon  his  own  name.  None  of  these  critics,  however, 
meets  the  objections  to  the  name  drawn  from  the  peculiar  character  of 
the  title  and  its  relations  to  Zech.  ix.  I,  xii.  i.  The  supposed  name 
of  the  prophet  gave  rise  to  the  legend  supported  by  many  of  the 
Fathers  that  Malachi,  like  Haggai  and  John  the  Baptist,  was  an 
incarnate  angel.  This  is  stated  and  condemned  by  Jerome,  Comm.  ad 
Hag.  i.  13,  but  held  by  Origen,  TertuUian  and  others.  The  existence 
of  such  an  opinion  is  itself  proof  for  the  impersonal  character  of  the 
name.  As  in  the  case  of  the  rest  of  the  prophets.  Christian  tradition 
furnishes  the  prophet  with  the  outhne  of  a  biography.  See  (Pseud-) 
Epiphanius  and  other  writers  quoted  above,  p.  232.   1^ 


334 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


perhaps  oppressed  by  the  majority.^  In  these  facts, 
which  are  all  we  know  of  his  personality,  he  found 
sufficient  reason  for  not  attaching  his  name  to  his 
prophecy. 

'  The  book  is  also  undated,  but  it  reflects  its  period 
almost  as  clearly  as  do  the  dated  Books  of  Haggai  and 
Zechariah.  The  conquest  of  Edom  by  the  Nabateans, 
which  took  place  during  the  Exile,^  is  already  past.^ 
The  Jews  are  under  a  Persian  viceroy.^  They  are  in 
touch  with  a  heathen  power,  which  does  not  tyrannise 
over  them,  for  this  book  is  the  first  to  predict  no 
judgment  upon  the  heathen,  and  the  first,  moreover,  to 
acknowledge  that  among  the  heathen  the  true  God  is 
worshipped  from  the  rising  to  the  setting  of  the  sun.^ 
The  only  judgment  predicted  is  one  upon  the  false 
and  disobedient  portion  of  Israel,  whose  arrogance  and 
success  have  cast  true  Israelites  into  despair.^  All 
this  reveals  a  time  when  the  Jews  were  favourably 
treated  by  their  Persian  lords.  The  reign  must  be 
that  of  Artaxerxes  Longhand,  464 — 424. 

The  Temple  has  been  finished,^  and  years  enough 
have   elapsed    to    disappoint    those  fervid    hopes  v/ith 

\  which  about  518  Zechariah  expected  its  completion. 
XThe  congregation  has  grown  worldly  and  careless.  In 
particular  the  priests  are  corrupt  and  partial  in  the 
administration  of  the  Law.^     There  have   been  many 


1  iii.  i6ff. 

"^  See  above  on  Obadiah,  p.  169,  and  below  on  the  passage 
itself. 

3  i.  2-5.  "  i.  8. 

^  i.  II  :  the  verbs  here  are  to  be  taken  in  the  present,  not  as  in 
A.V.  in  the  future,  tense. 

^  Passim  :  especially  iii.  1 3  fT.,  24. 

M.  10  ;  iii.  I,  10.  ^  ii.  1-9. 


THE  BOOK  OF  " MALACHI"  335 

marriages  with  the  heathen  women  of  the  land ;  ^  and 
the  laity  have  failed  to  pay  the  tithes  and  other  dues 
to  the  Temple.^  These  are  the  evils  against  which  we 
find  strenuous  measures  directed  by  Ezra,  who  returned 
from  Babylon  in  458,^  and  by  Nehemiah,  who  visited 
Jerusalem  as  its  governor  for  the  first  time  in  4^5  and 
for  the  second  time  in  433.  Besides,  ''the  rehgious 
spirit  of  the  book  is  that  of  the  prayers  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah.  A  strong  sense  of  the  unique  privileges  of 
the  children  of  Jacob,  the  objects  of  electing  love,^  the 
children  of  the  Divine  Father,^  is  combined  with  an 
equally  strong  assurance  of  Jehovah's  righteousness 
amidst  the  many  miseries  that  pressed  on  the  unhappy 
inhabitants  of  Judaea.  .  .  .  Obedience  to  the  Law  is 
the  sure  path  to  blessedness."^  But  the  question  still 
remains  whether  the  Book  of  '*  Malachi "  prepared 
for,  assisted  or  followed  up  the  reforms  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah.  An  ancient  tradition  already  alluded  to^ 
assigned  the  authorship  to  Ezra  himself 

Recent  criticism  has  been  divided  among  the  years 
immediately  before  Ezra's  arrival  in  458,  those  imme- 
diately before  Nehemiah's  first  visit  in  445,  those 
between  his  first  government  and  his  second,  and 
those  after  Nehemiah's  disappearance  from  Jerusalem. 
But  the  years  in  which  Nehemiah  held  office  may  be 
excluded,  because  the  Jews  are  represented  as  bringing 
gifts  to  the  governor,  which  Nehemiah  tells  us  he  did 
not  allow  to  be  brought  to  him.^     The  whole  question 


1  ii.  10-16.  *  i.  2. 

"  iii.  7-12.  5  ii.  10. 

'  See  above,  pp.  195  f. 

®  ii.  17— iii.    12;  iii.  22  f.,  Eng.  iv.     The  above  sentences  are  from 
Robertson  Smith,  art.  "Malachi,"  Encyc.  Brit.,  9th  ed. 
'  Above,  p.  332,  n.  3.  "  "Mai."  i.  8;  Neb.  v. 


336  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

depends  upon  what  Law  was  in  practice  in  Israel  when 
the  book  was  written.  In  445  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  by 
solemn  covenant  between  the  people  and  Jehovah,  insti- 
tuted the  code  which  we  now  know  as  the  Priestly  Code 
of  the  Pentateuch.  Before  that  year  the  ritual  and 
social  life  of  the  Jews  appear  to  have  been  directed  by 
the  Deuteronomic  Code.  Now  the  Book  of  **  Malachi  " 
enforces  a  practice  with  regard  to  the  tithes,  which 
agrees  more  closely  with  the  Priestly  Code  than  it 
does  with  Deuteronomy.  Deuteronomy  commands 
that  every  third  year  the  whole  tithe  is  to  be  given  to 
the  Levites  and  the  poor  who  reside  within  the  gates  01 
the  giver,  and  is  there  to  be  eaten  by  them.  ''Malachi" 
commands  that  the  whole  tithe  be  brought  into  the 
storehouse  of  the  Temple  for  the  Levites  in  service 
there ;  and  so  does  the  Priestly  Code.^  On  this 
ground  many  date  the  Book  of  "  Malachi "  after  445.^ 
But  "  Malachi's"  divergence  from  Deuteronomy  on  this 
point  may  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  in  his  time 
there  were  practically  no  Levites  outside  Jerusalem  ; 
and  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  he  joins  the  tithe  with  the 
terumah  or  heave-offering  exactly  as  Deuteronomy 
does.^  On  other  points  of  the  Law  he  agrees  rather 
with  Deuteronomy  than  with  the  Priestly  Code.  He 
follows  Deuteronomy  in  calling  the  priests  sons  oj 
Levi,'^  while  the  Priestly  Code  limits  the  priesthood  to 
the  sons  of  Aaron.     He  seems  to  quote  Deuteronomy 

*  Deut.  xii.  Ii,  xxvi.  12;  "Mai."  iii.  8,  10;  Num.  xviii,  21  if.  (P). 

^  Vatke  (contemporaneous  with  Nehemiah),  Schrader,  Keil, 
Kuenen  (perhaps  in  second  governorship  of  Nehemiah,  but  see  above, 
p.  335,  for  a  decisive  reason  against  this),  Kohler,  Driver,  Von  Orelli 
(between  Nehemiah's  first  and  second  visit),  Kirkpatrick,  Robertson. 

^  Deut.  xii.  ii.  In  P  terumah  is  a  due  paid  to  priests  as  distinct 
from  Levites.  *  ii.  4-8  :  cf.  Deut.  xxxiii.  8. 


THE  BOOK  OF  '' MALACHI"  337 

when  forbidding  the  oblation  of  blind,  lame  and  sick 
beasts;^  appears  to  differ  from  the  Priestly  Code 
which  allows  the  sacrificial  beast  to  be  male  or  female, 
when  he  assumes  that  it  is  a  male ;-  follows  the  expres- 
sions of  Deuteronomy  and  not  those  of  the  Priestly 
Code  in  detailing  the  sins  of  the  people  ;  ^  and  uses  the 
Deuteronomic  phrases  the  Law  of  Moses,  My  servant 
Moses,  statutes  and  Judgments,  and  Horeb  for  the  Mount  of 
the  Law.*  For  the  rest,  he  echoes  or  implies  only  Ezekiel 
and  that  part  of  the  Priestly  Code  °  which  is  regarded 
as  earlier  than  the  rest,  and  probably  from  the  first 
years  of  exile.  Moreover  he  describes  the  Torah  as 
not  yet  fully  codified.''  The  priests  still  deliver  it  in  a 
way  improbable  after  445.  The  trouble  of  the  heathen 
marriages  with  which  he  deals  (if  indeed  the  verses  on 
this  subject  be  authentic  and  not  a  later  intrusion'') 
was  that  which  engaged  Ezra's  attention  on  his  arrival 
in  458,  but  Ezra  found  that  it  had  already  for  some 
time  been  vexing  the  heads  of  the  community.  While, 
therefore,  we  are  obliged  to  date  the  Book  of  ^^Malachi" 
before  445  b.c,  it  is  uncertain  whether  it  preceded  or 

M.  8;  Deut.  xv.  21.  ^  i,  14;  Lev.  iii.  i,  6. 

^  iii.  5  ;  Deut,  v.  il  fF.,  xviii.  10,  xxiv.  17  ff. ;  Lev.  xix.  31,  ^^  i, 
XX.  6. 

*  iii.  22  Heb.,  iv.  4  Eng,  Law  of  Moses  and  Moses  My  servant  are 
found  only  in  the  Deuteronomistic  portions  of  the  Hexateuch  and 
historical  books  and  here.  In  P  Sinai  is  the  Mount  of  the  Lav/.  To 
the  above  may  be  added  segullah,  iii.  17,  which  is  found  in  the 
Pentateuch  only  outside  P  and  in  Psalm  cxxxv.  4.  All  these  resem- 
blances between  "  Malachi  "  and  Deuteronomy  and  "  Malachi's  "  diver- 
gences from  P  are  given  in  Robertson  Smith's  Old  Test,  in  the  Jeivish 
Churchy  2nd  ed.,  425  fF. :  cf.  444  ff. 

'  Lev.  xvii. — xxvi.  From  this  and  Ezekiel  he  received  the  concep- 
tion of  the  profanation  of  the  sanctuary  by  the  sins  of  the  people — 
ii.  II:  cf.  also  ii.  2,  iii.  3,  4,  for  traces  of  Ezekiel's  influence, 

®  ii.  6  ff.  ^  See  below,  pp.  340,  363,  365. 

VOL.  II.  22 


338  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

followed    Ezra's    attempts    at    reform    in    458.       Most 
critics  now  think  that  it  preceded  them/ 

The  Book  of  "  Malachi "  is  an  argument  with  the 
prophet's  contemporaries,  not  only  with  the  wicked 
among  them,  who  in  forgetfulness  of  what  Jehovah  is 
corrupt  the  ritual,  fail  to  give  the  Tem.ple  its  dues, 
abuse  justice,  marry  foreign  wives,"  divorce  their  own, 
and  commit  various  other  sins ;  but  also  with  the 
pious,  who,  equally  forgetful  of  God's  character,  are 
driven  by  the  arrogance  of  the  wicked  to  ask,  whether 
He  loves  Israel,  whether  He  is  a  God  of  justice,  and 
to  murmur  that  it  is  vain  to  serve  Him.  To  these  two 
classes  of  his  contemporaries  the  prophet  has  the 
following  answers.  God  does  love  Israel.  He  is  wor- 
shipped everywhere  among  the  heathen.  He  is  the 
Father  of  all  Israel.  He  will  bless  His  people  when 
they  put  away  all  abuses  from  their  midst  and  pay 
their  religious  dues;  and  His  Day  of  Judgment  is 
coming,  when  the  good  shall  be  separated  from  the 
wicked.  But  before  it  come,  Elijah  the  prophet  will 
be  sent  to  attempt  the  conversion  of  the  wicked,  or  at 
least  to  call  the  nation  to  decide  for  Jehovah.  This 
argument  is  pursued  in  seven  or  perhaps  eight  para- 
graphs, which  do  not  show  much  consecutiveness,  but 
are  addressed,  some  to  the  wicked,  and  some  to  the 
despairing  adherents  of  Jehovah. 

I.  Chap.  i.  2-5. — To  those  who  ask  how  God  loves  Israel,  the  proof 
of  Jehovah's  election  of  Israel  is  shown  in  the  fall  of  the  Edomites. 

'  Herzfeld,  Bleek,  Stade,  Kautzsch  (probably),  Wellhausen  {Gesch., 
p.  125),  Nowack  before  the  arrival  of  Ezra,  Cornill  either  soon  before 
or  soon  after  458,  Robertson  Smith  either  before  or  soon  after  445. 
Hitzig  at  first  put  it  before  458,  but  was  afterwards  moved  to  date  it 
after  358,  as  he  took  the  overthrow  of  the  Edomites  described  in 
chap.  i.  2-5  to  be  due  to  a  campaign  in  that  year  by  Artaxerxes 
Ochus  (cf.  Euseb.,  Chron.,  II.  221).         ^  But  see  belov/,  pp.  340,  365. 


THE  BOOK  OF  "MALACHI"  339 

2.  Chap.  i.  6-14. — Charge  against  the  people  of  dishonouring  their 
God,  whom  even  the  heathen  reverence. 

3.  Chap.  ii.  1-9. — Charge  against  the  priests,  who  have  broken  the 
covenant  God  made  of  old  with  Levi,  and  debased  their  high  office  by 
not  reverencing  Jehovah,  by  misleading  the  people  and  by  perverting 
justice.  A  curse  is  therefore  fallen  on  them— they  are  contemptible 
in  the  people's  eyes. 

4.  Chap.  ii.  io-i6. — A  charge  against  the  people  for  their  treachery 
to  each  other ;  instanced  in  the  heathen  marriages,  if  the  two  verses, 
II  and  12,  upon  this  be  authentic,  and  in  their  divorce  of  their  wives. 

5.  Chap.  ii.  17— iii.  5  or  6.— Against  those  who  in  the  midst  of  such 
evils  grow  sceptical  about  Jehovah.  His  Angel,  or  Himself,  will 
come /irst  to  purge  the  priesthood  and  ritual  that  there  may  be  pure 
sacrifices,  and  second  to  rid  the  land  of  its  criminals  and  sinners. 

6.  Chap.  iii.  6  or  7-12.— A  charge  against  the  people  of  neglecting 
tithes.    Let  these  be  paid,  disasters  shall  cease  and  the  land  be  blessed. 

7.  Chap.  iii.  13-21  Heb.,  Chap.  iii.  13— iv.  2  LXX.  and  Eng.— 
Another  charge  against  the  pious  for  saying  it  is  vain  to  serve  God. 
God  will  rise  to  action  and  separate  between  the  good  and  bad  in 
the  terrible  Day  of  His  coming. 

8.  To  this,  Chap.  iii.  22-24  Heb.,  Chap.  iv.  3-5  Eng.,  adds  a  call 
to  keep  the  Law,  and  a  promise  that  Elijah  will  be  sent  to  see  whether 
he  may  not  convert  the  people  before  the  Day  of  the  Lord  comes 
upon  them  with  its  curse. 

The  authenticity  of  no  part  of  the  book  has  been 
till  now  in  serious  question.  Bohme,^  indeed,  took 
the  last  three  verses  for  a  later  addition,  on  account 
of  their  Deuteronomic  character,  but,  as  Kuenen  points 
out,  this  is  in  agreement  with  other  parts  of  the  book. 
Sufficient  attention  has  not  yet  been  paid  to  the  question 
of  the  integrity  of  the  text.  The  Septuagint  offers  a 
few  emendations.^  There  are  other  passages  obviously 
or  probably  corrupt.^  The  text  of  the  title,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  uncertain,  and  probably  a  later  addition. 
Professor   Robertson    Smith    has    called    attention    to 

1  Z.A.T.IV.,  1887,  210  ff. 

^  i.  1 1,  for  pMi  deSo^aarai;  perhaps  ii.  12, 1]^  for  "ly ;  perhaps  iii.  8  if., 
for  V2?  ^pVi  16,  for  TN  raOra. 
'  i.  II  ff. ;  ii.  3,  and  perhaps  12,  15. 


340  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


chap.  ii.  1 6,  where  the  Massoretic  punctuation  seems 
to  have  been  determined  with  the  desire  to  support 
the  rendering  of  the  Targum  "  if  thou  hatest  her  put 
her  away,"  and  so  pervert  into  a  permission  to  divorce 
a  passage  which  forbids  divorce  almost  as  clearly  as 
Christ  Himself  did.  But  in  truth  the  whole  of  this 
passage,  chap.  ii.  10-16,  is  in  such  a  curious  state 
that  we  can  hardly  believe  in  its  integrity.  It  opens 
with  the  statement  that  God  is  the  Father  of  all  us 
Israelites,  and  with  the  challenge,  why  then  are  we 
faithless  to  each  other  ? — ver.  10.  But  vv.  1 1  and  12  do 
not  give  an  instance  of  this  :  they  describe  the  marriages 
with  the  heathen  women  of  the  land,  which  is  not  a 
proof  of  faithlessness  between  Israelites.  Such  a  proof 
is  furnished  only  by  vv.  13-16,  with  their  condemnation 
of  those  who  divorce  the  wives  of  their  3^outh.  The 
verses,  therefore,  cannot  lie  in  their  proper  order,  and 
vv.  13-16  ought  to  follow  immediately  upon  ver.  10. 
This  raises  the  question  of  the  authenticity  of  vv.  1 1 
and  12,  against  the  heathen  marriages.  If  they  bear 
such  plain  marks  of  having  been  intruded  into  their 
position,  we  can  understand  the  possibility  of  such  an 
intrusion  in  subsequent  days,  when  the  question  of 
the  heathen  marriages  came  to  the  front  with  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah.  Besides,  these  verses  11  and  12  lack 
the  characteristic  mark  of  all  the  other  oracles  of  the 
book :  they  do  not  state  a  general  charge  against 
the  people,  and  then  introduce  the  people's  question 
as  to  the  particulars  of  the  charge.  On  the  whole, 
therefore,  these  verses  are  suspicious.  If  not  a  later 
intrusion,  they  are  at  least  out  of  place  where  they 
now  lie.  The  peculiar  remark  in  ver.  13,  and  this 
secondly  ye  do,  must  have  been  added  by  the  editor  to 
whom  we  owe  the  present  arrangement. 


CHAPTER    XXV 

FROM  ZECHARIAH  TO  '' MALACHr 

BETWEEN  the  completion  of  the  Temple  in  516 
and  the  arrival  of  Ezra  in  458,  we  have  almost 
no  record  of  the  little  colony  round  Mount  Zion.  The 
Jewish  chronicles  devote  to  the  period  but  a  few  verses 
of  unsupported  tradition.-^  After  517  we  have  nothing 
from  Zechariah  himself;  and  if  any  other  prophet 
appeared  during  the  next  half-century,  his  words  have 
not  survived.  We  are  left  to  infer  what  was  the  true 
condition  of  affairs,  not  less  from  this  ominous  silence 
than  from  the  hints  which  are  given  to  us  in  the 
writings  of  "  Malachi,"  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  after  the 
period  was  over.  Beyond  a  partial  attempt  to  rebuild 
the  walls  of  the  city  in  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  I./  there 
seems  to  have  been  nothing  to  record.  It  was  a 
period  of  disillusion,  disheartening  and  decay.  The 
completion  of  the  Temple  did  not  bring  in  the  Messianic 
era.      Zerubbabel,  whom   Haggai  and  Zechariah  had 


*  Ezra  iv.  6-23. 

^  This  is  recorded  in  the  Aramean  document  which  has  been 
incorporated  in  our  Book  of  Ezra,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
its  reality.  In  that  document  we  have  already  found,  in  spite  of  its 
comparatively  late  date,  much  that  is  accurate  history.  See  above, 
p.  212.  And  it  is  clear  that,  the  Temple  being  finished,  the  Jews 
must  have  drawn  upon  themselves  the  same  religious  envy  of  the 
Samaritans   which  had  previously  delayed   the  construction  of  the 

341 


342  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

crowned  as  the  promised  King  of  Israel,  died  without 
reaching  higher  rank  than  a  minor  satrapy  in  the 
Persian  Empire,  and  even  in  that  he  appears  to  have 
been  succeeded  by  a  Persian  official.^  The  re-migrations 
from  Babylon  and  elsewhere,  which  Zechariah  predicted, 
did  not  take  place.  The  small  population  of  Jerusalem 
were  still  harassed  by  the  hostility,  and  their  morale 
sapped  by  the  insidiousness,  of  their  Samaritan  neigh- 
bours :  they  were  denied  the  stimulus,  the  purgation, 
the  glory  of  a  great  persecution.  Their  Persian  tyrants 
for  the  most  part  left  them  alone.  The  world  left 
them  alone.  Nothing  stirred  in  Palestine  except  the 
V  Samaritan  intrigues.  ^  History  rolled  away  westward, 
and  destiny  seemed  to  be  settling  on  the  Greeks.  In 
490  Miltiades  defeated  the  Persians  at  Marathon.  In 
480  Thermopylge  was  fought  and  the  Persian  fleet 
broken  at  Salamis.  In  479  a  Persian  army  was 
destroyed  at  Plataea,  and  Xerxes  lost  Europe  and 
most  of  the  Ionian  coast.  In  460  Athens  sent  an 
expedition  to  Egypt  to  assist  the  Egyptian  revolt 
against  Persia,  and  in  457  "her  slain  fell  in  Cyprus, 
in  Egypt,  in  Phoenicia,  at  Halige,  in  iEgina,  and  in 
Megara  in  the  same  year."^ 

Thus  severely  left  to  themselves  and  to  the  petty 
hostilities  of  their  neighbours,  the  Jews  appear  to  have 
sunk  into  a  careless  and  sordid  manner  of  life.     They 

Temple.  To  meet  it,  what  more  natural  than  that  the  Jews  should 
have  attempted  to  raise  the  walls  of  their  city  ?  It  is  almost 
impossible  to  believe  that  they  who  had  achieved  the  construction 
of  the  Temple  in  516  should  not,  in  the  next  fifty  years,  make  some 
effort  to  raise  their  fallen  walls.  And  indeed  Nehemiah's  account  of 
his  own  work  almost  necessarily  implies  that  they  had  done  so,  for 
what  he  did  after  445  was  not  to  build  new  walls,  but  rather  to 
repair  shattered  ones. 

'  See  above,  p.  335,  n.  8,  and  below,  p.  354,  on  "  Mai."  i.  8. 


FROM  ZECHARIAH  TO   "MALACHI'  343 


entered  the  period,  it  is  true,  with  some  sense  of  their 
distinction.^  ^  exile  they  had  suffered  God's  anger/>^ 
and  had  been  purged  by  it.     But  out  of  discipHne  often 
springs  pride,  and  there  is  no  subtler  temptation  of 
the  human  heart,  ^he  returned  Israel  felt  this  to  the 
quick,  and  it  sorely  unfitted  them  for  encountering  the 
disappointment    and    hardship   which    followed    upon 
the   completion   of  the   Temple.      The   tide  of  hope, 
which  rose   to   flood   with    that  consummation,  ebbed 
rapidly  away,  and   left  God's   people  struggling,    like 
any  ordinary  tribe  of  peasants,  with  bad  s^sons  and 
the  cruelty  of  their  envious  neighbours,   ^hek  pride  ^ 
was  set  on  edge,  and  they  fell,  not  as  at  other  periods 
of  disappointment  into  despair,  but  into  a  bitter^care- 
lessness  and  a  contempt  of  their  duty  to  God.     This 
was    a    curious    temper,    and,    so   far    as   we    know, 
new  in  Israel.     It  led  them  to  despise  both  His  love 
and  His  holiness.^     They  neglected  their  Temple  dues, 
and  impudently  presented  to  their  God  polluted  bread 
and  blemished  beasts  which  they  would  not  have  dared 
to  offer  to  their  Persian   governor.*     Like  people  like 
priest  :    the   priesthood   lost   not   reverence   only,    but 
decency   and   all    conscience   of   their   office.^      They 
despised  the   Table  of  the  Lord,  ceased  to  instruct  the 
people  and  grew  partial  in  judgment.    As  a  consequence 
they  became  contemptible  in  the  eyes  of  the  community. 
Immorality  prevailed   among   all   classes  :    every   man 
dealt  treacherously  ivith  his  brother.^     Adultery,  perjury, 
fraud  and  the  oppression  of  the  poor  were  very  rife. 
One  particular  fashion,  in  which  the  people's  wounded 

»  Cf.   Stade,  Gesch.  des  Volkes  Israel,    II.,   pp.    128-138,   the  best 
account  of  this  period.  ^  Id.  i.  7  f.,  12-14. 

2  '<Mal."iii.  14.  '  Id.\.6L,  ii. 

3  "Mai."  i.  2,  6;  iii.  8  f,  ^  Id,  ii,  10, 


344  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

pride  spited  itself,  was  the  custom  of  marriage  which 
even  the  best  families  contracted  with  the  half-heathen 
people  of  the  land.     Across  Judah  there  were  scattered 
the  descendants  of  those  Jews  whom  Nebuchadrezzar 
had  not  deemed  worth  removing  to  Babylon.    Whether 
regarded    from  a  social  or  a  religious  point  of  view, 
their  fathers  had  been  the  dregs  of  the  old  community. 
Their  own  religion,   cut  off   as    they    were   from   the 
main    body   of  Israel    and    scattered   among   the    old 
heathen  shrines  of  the  land,   must   have   deteriorated 
still  further ;   but  in  all  probability  they  had  secured 
for   themselves   the    best  portions  of  the  vacant   soil, 
and  now  enjoyed  a  comfort  and  a  stability  of  welfare 
far  beyond  that  which  was  yet  attainable  by  the  majority 
of  the   returned    exiles.      More  numerous  than  these 
dregs  of   ancient  Jewry  were  the  very  mixed  race  of 
the  Samaritans.     They  possessed  a  rich  land,   which 
they   had    cultivated  long   enough    for   many  of  their 
families   to   be   settled   in   comparative  wealth.    With 
all  these  half-pagan  Jews  and  Samaritans,  the  families 
of  the  true    Israel,  as   they  regarded  themselves,  did 
not   hesitate  to  form  alliances,  for   in    the   precarious 
position   of  the  colony,  such  alliances  were  the  surest 
way  both   to  wealth  and  to  poHtical  influence.     How 
much   the   Jews   were   mastered    by    their   desire   for 
them  is  seen  from  the  fact  that,  when  the  relatives  of 
their  half-heathen  brides  made  it  a  condition  of  the 
marriages   that   they   should  first  put  away  their  old 
wives,    they   readily   did    so.      Divorce   became   very 
frequent,  and  great  suffering  was  inflicted  on  the  native 
Jewish  women. ^ 

So  the  religious  condition  of  Israel  declined  for  nearly 

1  "Mal."ii.  I0-I6.  . 


FROM  ZECHARIAH  TO   "  MALA  CHI"  345 

two  generations,  and  then  about  460  the  Word  of 
God,  after  long  silence,  broke  once  more  through  a 
prophet's  lips. 

*AVe  call  this  prophet  ''  Malachi,"  following  the  error 
of  an  editor  of  his  book,  who,  finding  it  nameless, 
inferred  or  invented  that  name  from  its  description  of 
the  priest  as  the  ''  Male'ach,"  or  messenger^  of  the  Lord 
of  Hosts.  ^  But  the  prophet  gave  himself  no  name. 
Writing  from  the  midst  of  a  poor  and  persecuted  group 
of  the  people,  and  attacking  the  authorities  both  of 
church  and  state,  he  preferred  to  publish  his  charge 
anonymously.  His  name  was  in  the  LonVs  own  hook  of 
remembrancer  ^ 

The  unknown  prophet  addressed  himself  both  to  the 
sinners  of  his  people,  and  to  those  querulous  adherents 
of  Jehovah  whom  the  success  of  the  sinners  had 
tempted  to  despair  in  their  service  of  God.  His  style 
shares  the  practical  directness  of  his  predecessors 
among  the  returned  exiles.  He  takes  up  one  point 
after  another,  and  drives  them  home  in  a  series  of 
strong,  plain  paragraphs  of  prose.  But  it  is  sixty 
years  since  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  and  in  the  circum- 
stances we  have  described,  a  prophet  could  no  longer 
come  forward  as  a  public  inspirer  of  his  nation. 
Prophecy  seems  to  have  been  driven  from  public  life, 
from  the  sudden  enforcement  of  truth  in  the  face  of  the 
people  to  the  more  deHberate  and  ordered  argument 
which  marks  the  teacher  who  works  in  private.  In  the 
Book  of  "Malachi"  there  are  many  of  the  principles 
and  much  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  ancient  Hebrew 
seer.      But    the    discourse    is    broken    up    into   formal 


^  For  proof  of  this  see  above,  pp.  331  f. 
2  "  Mai."  iii.  16. 


346  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

paragraphs,  each  upon  the  same  academic  model.  First 
a  truth  is  pronounced,  or  a  charge  made  against  the 
people  ;  then  with  the  words  but  ye  will  say  the  prophet 
states  some  possible  objection  of  his  hearers,  proceeds 
to  answer  it  by  detailed  evidence,  and  only  then  drives 
home  his  truth,  or  his  charge,  in  genuine  prophetic 
fashion.  To  the  student  of  prophecy  this  peculiarity 
of  the  book  is  of  the  greatest  mterest,  for  it  is  no 
jy^erely  personal  idiosyncrasy.  »AVe  rather  feel  that 
prophecy  is  now  assuming  the  temper  of  the  teacher. 
The  method  is  the  commencement  of  that  which  later 
on  becomes  the  prevailing  habit  in  Jewish  literature. 
Just  as  with  Zephaniah  we  saw  prophecy  passing  into 
Apocalypse,  and  with  Habakkuk  into  the  speculation 
of  the  schools  of  Wisdom,  so  now  in  "  Malachi "  we 
perceive  its  transformation  into  the  scholasticism  of 
the  Rabbis.  >/ 

But  the  interest  of  this  change  of  style  must  not 
prevent  us  from  appreciating  the  genuine  prophetic 
spirit  of  our  book.  Far  more  fully  than,  for  instance, 
that  of  Haggai,  to  the  style  of  which  its  practical  sim- 
plicity is  so  akin,  it  enumerates  the  prophetic  principles  : 
the  everlasting  Love  of  Jehovah  for  Israel,  the  Father- 
hood of  Jehovah  and  His  Holiness,  His  ancient  Ideals 
for  Priesthood  and  People,  the  need  of  a  Repentance 
proved  by  deeds,  the  consequent  Promise  of  Prosperity, 
the  Day  of  the  Lord,  and  Judgment  between  the  evil 
and  the  righteous.  Upon  the  last  of  these  the  book 
affords  a  striking  proof  of  the  delinquency  of  the  people 
during  the  last  half-century,  and  in  connection  with 
it  the  prophet  introduces  certain  novel  features.  To 
Haggai  and  Zechariah  the  great  Tribulation  had  closed 
with  the  Exile  and  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  : 
Israel  stood  on  the  margin  of  the  Messianic  age.     But 


FROM  ZECHARIAH  TO   ''MALA CHI"  347 


^ 


the  Book  of  ^'  Malachi "  proclaims  the  need  of  another 
judgment  as  emphatically  as  the  older  prophets  had 
predicted  the  Babylonian  doom.  ^'Malachi"  repeats 
their  name  for  it,  the  great  and  terrible  Day  of  Jehovah. 
But  he  does  not  foresee  it,  as  they  did,  in  the  shape 
of  a  historical  process.  His  description  of  it  is  pure 
Apocalypse — the  fire  of  the  smelter  and  the  fuller's  acid: 
the  day  that  hums  like  a  furnace,^htx\  all  wickedness 
is  as  stubble,  and  all  evil  men  are  devoured,  but  to 
the  righteous  the  Sun  of  Righteous7iess  shall  arise  with 
healing  in  His  ivings,  and  they  shall  tread  the  wicked 
under  foot.^  To  this  the  prophet  adds  a  novel  promise. 
God  is  so  much  the  God  of  love,^  that  before  the  Day 
comes  He  will  give  His  people  an  opportunity  of  con- 
version. He  will  send  them  Elijah  the  prophet  to 
change  their  hearts,  that  He  may  be  prevented  from 
striking  the  land  with  His  Ban. 

In  one  other  point  the  book  is  original,  and  that 
is  in  its  attitude  towards  the  heathen.  Among  the 
heathen,  it  boldly  says,  Jehovah  is  held  in  higher 
reverence  than  among  His  own  people.^  In  such 
a  statement  we  can  hardly  fail  to  feel  the  influence 
upon  Israel  of  their  contact,  often  close  and  personal, 
with  their  wise  and  mild  tyrants  the  Persians.  We 
may  emphasise  the  verse  as  the  first  note  of  that 
recognition  of  the  real  religiousness  of  the  heathen, 
which  we  shall  find  swelling  to  such  fulness  and 
tenderness  in  the  Book  of  Jonah. 

Such  are  in  brief  the  style  and  the  principles  of  the 
Book  of  "  Malachi,"  whose  separate  prophecies  we  may 
now  proceed  to  take  up  in  detail. 


*  iii.  2,  19  ff.  Heb.,  iv.  i  fF.  Eng. 
2  iii.  6.  M.  II. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 

PROPHECY  WITHIN  THE  LAW 
"  Malachi  "  i. — iv. 

BENEATH  this  title  we  may  gather  all  the  eight 
sections  of  the  Book  of  '•  Malachi."  They  con- 
tain many  things  of  perennial  interest  and  validity : 
their  truth  is  applicable,  their  music  is  still  musical,  to 
ourselves.  But  their  chief  significance  is  historical. 
They  illustrate  the  development  of  prophecy  within  the 
Law.  Not  tinder  the  Law,  be  it  observed.  For  if  one 
thing  be  more  clear  than  another  about  '^  Malachi's " 
teaching,  it  is  that  the  spirit  of  prophecy  is  not  yet 
crushed  by  the  legaHsm  which  finally  killed  it  within 
Israel.  ''  Malachi "  observes  and  enforces  the  demands 
of  the  Deuteronomic  law  under  which  his  people  had 
lived  since  the  Return  from  Exile.  But  he  traces 
each  of  these  to  some  spiritual  principle,  to  some 
essential  of  religion  in  the  character  of  Israel's  God, 
which  is  either  doubted  or  neglected  by  his  contem- 
poraries in  their  lax  performance  of  the  Law.  That 
is  v/hy  we  may  entitle  his  book  Prophecy  within  the 
Law. 

The  essential  principles  of  the  religion  of  Israel  which 
had  been  shaken  or  obscured  by  the  delinquency  of  the 
people   during  the  half-century  after  the  rebuilding  of 

348 


"Mal."i.-iv.]     PROPHECY  WITHIN  THE  LAW  349 

the  Temple  were  three — the  distinctive  Love  of  Jehovah 
for  His  people,  His  Hohness,  and  His  Righteousness. 
The  Book  of  "  Malachi  "  takes  up  each  of  these  in  turn, 
and  proves  or  enforces  it  according  as  the  people  have 
formally  doubted  it  or  in  their  carelessness  done  it 
despite. 

I.  God's  Love  for  Israel  and  Hatred  of  Edom 
(Chap.  i.  2-5). 

He  begins  with  God's  Love,  and  in  answer  to  the 
disappointed  ^  people's  cry,  Wherein  hast  Thou  loved  its  ? 
he  does  not,  as  the  older  prophets  did,  sweep  the  whole 
history  of  Israel,  and  gather  proofs  of  Jehovah's  grace 
and  unfailing  guidance  in  all  the  great  events  from  the 
deliverance  from  Egypt  to  the  deliverance  from  Babylon. 
But  he  confines  himself  to  a  comparison  of  Israel  with 
the  Gentile  nation,  which  was  most  akin  to  Israel 
according  to  the  flesh,  their  own  brother  Edom.  It  is 
possible,  of  course,  to  see  in  this  a  proof  of  our  prophet's 
narrowness,  as  contrasted  with  Amos  or  Hosea  or  the 
great  Evangelist  of  the  Exile.  But  we  must  remember 
that  out  of  all  the  history  of  Israel ''  Malachi "  could  not 
have  chosen  an  instance  which  would  more  strongly 
appeal  to  the  heart  of  his  contemporaries.  We  have 
seen  from  the  Book  of  Obadiah  how  ever  since  the 
beginning  of  the  Exile  Edom  had  come  to  be  regarded 
by  Israel  as  their  great  antithesis.^  If  we  needed 
further  proof  of  this  we  should  find  it  in  many  Psalms 
of  the  Exile,  which  like  the  Book  of  Obadiah  remember 
with  bitterness  the  hostile  part  that  Edom  played  in 
the  day  of  Israel's  calamity.     The  two  nations  were 


■  See  above,  p.  343. 

^  See  above,  Chapter  XIV.  on  "  Edom  and  Israel." 


3S0  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 


Utterly  opposed  in  genius  and  character.  Edom  was 
a  people  of  as  unspiritual  and  self-sufficient  a  temper 
as  ever  cursed  any  of  God's  human  creatures.  Like 
their  ancestor  they  were  profane,^  without  repentance, 
humihty  or  ideals,  and  almost  without  religion.  Apart, 
therefore,  from  the  long  history  of  war  between  the 
two  peoples,  it  was  a  true  instinct  which  led  Israel  to 
regard  their  brother  as  representative  of  that  heathendom 
against  which  they  had  to  realise  their  destiny  in  the 
world  as  God's  own  nation.  In  choosing  the  contrast 
of  Edom's  fate  to  illustrate  Jehovah's  love  for  Israel, 
"  Malachi "  was  not  only  choosing  what  would  appeal 
to  the  passions  of  his  contemporaries,  but  what  is 
the  most  striking  and  constant  antithesis  in  the  whole 
history  of  Israel :  the  absolutely  diverse  genius  and 
destiny  of  these  two  Semitic  nations  who  were  nearest 
neighbours  and,  according  to  their  traditions,  twin- 
brethren  after  the  flesh.  If  we  keep  this  in  mind  we 
shall  understand  Paul's  use  of  the  antithesis  in  the 
passage  in  which  he  clenches  it  by  a  quotation  from 
"  Malachi "  :  as  it  is  written,  Jacob  have  I  loved,  but  Esau 
have  I  hated?  In  these  words  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine 
election  of  individuals  appears  to  be  expressed  as 
absolutely  as  possible.  But  it  would  be  unfair  to  read 
the  passage  except  in  the  light  of  Israel's  history.  In 
the  Old  Testament  it  is  a  matter  of  fact  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  Divine  preference  of  Israel  to  Esau 
appeared  only  after  the  respective  characters  of  the 
nations  were  manifested  in  history,  and  that  it  grew 
more  defined  and  absolute  only  as  history  discovered 


»  Heb.  xii.  1 6. 

-  Romans   ix.    13.      The  citation  is   from  the  LXX. :   rhv  'la^ibjS 
iiydiTTjaa,  rhv  bk  'HcraO  i/xi<nj<ra. 


"Mal."i.-iv.]    PROPHECY  WITHIN  THE  LAW  35' 


more  of  the  fundamental  contrast  between  the  two  in 
genius  and  destiny.^  In  the  Old  Testament,  therefore, 
the  doctrine  is  the  result,  not  of  an  arbitrary  belief  in 
God's  bare  fiat,  but  of  historical  experience ;  although, 
of  course,  the  distinction  which  experience  proves  is 
traced  back,  with  everything  else  of  good  or  evil  that 
happens,  to  the  sovereign  will  and  purpose  of  God. 
Nor  let  us  forget  that  the  Old  Testament  doctrine  of 
election  is  of  election  to  service  only.  That  is  to  say, 
the  Divine  intention  in  electing  covers  not  the  elect 
individual  or  nation  only,  but  the  whole  world  and  its 
needs  of  God  and  His  truth. 

The  event  to  which  "  Malachi "  appeals  as  evidence 
for  God's  rejection  of  Edom  is  the  desolation  of  the 
latter's  ancient  heritage,  and  the  abandonment  of  it 
to  the  jackals  of  the  desert.  Scholars  used  to  think 
that  these  vague  phrases  referred  to  some  act  of  the 
Persian  kings  :  some  removal  of  the  Edomites  from 
the  lands  of  the  Jews  in  order  to  make  room  for  the 
returned  exiles.^  But  "  Malachi  "  says  expressly  that 
it  was  Edom's  own  heritage  which  was  laid  desolate. 
This  can  only  be  Mount  Esau  or  Se'ir,  and  the  state- 
ment that  it  was  delivered  to  the  jackals  of  the  desert 
proves  that  the  reference  is  to  that  same  expulsion  of 
Edom  from  their  territory  by  the  Nabatean  Arabs 
which  we  have  already  seen  the  Book  of  Obadiah 
relate  about  the  beginning  of  the  Exile.^ 


1  This  was  mainly  after  the  beginning  of  exile.  Shortly  before 
that  Deut.  xxiii.  7  says  :  Thou  shalt  not  abhor  an  Edomite,  for  he  is 
thy  brother. 

2  So  even  so  recently  as  1888,  Stade,  Gesch.  des  Volkes  Israel, 
II.,  p.  112. 

3  See  above,  p.  169.  This  interpretation  is  there  said  to  be 
Wellhausen's ;  but  Cheyne,  in  a  note  contributed  to  the  Z.A.T.W., 


352  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

But  it  is  now  time  to  give  in  full  the  opening 
passage  of  *'  Malachi,"  in  which  he  appeals  to  this 
important  event  as  proof  of  God's  distinctive  love  for 
Israel,  and,  *'  Malachi "  adds,  of  His  power  beyond 
Israel's  border  (*'  Mai."  chap.  y.  2-5). 

/  have  loved  you,  saith  Jehovah.  But  ye  say^ 
"  Wherein  hast  Thou  loved  us  ?  "  Is  not  Esau  brother 
to  Jacob  ? — oracle  of  Jehovah — and  I  have  loved  Jacob  and 
Esau  have  I  hated.  I  have  made  his  inountains  desolate^ 
and  given  his  heritage  to  the  jackals  of  the  desert.  Should 
the  people  of  Edom  say^  *'  We  are  destroy ed,  but  we 
ivill  rebuild  the  waste  places,^^  thus  saith  Jehovah  of 
Hosts,  They  may  build,  but  I  will  pull  down  :  men  shall 
call  them  **  The  Border  of  Wickedness"  and  *'  The  People 
with  ivhom  Jehovah  is  im'oth  for  ever."  And  your  eyes 
shall  see  it,  and  yourselves  shall  say,  '^  Great  is  Jehovah 
beyond  IsraeVs  border^ 

2.  "Honour  Thy  Father"  (Chap.  i.  6-14). 

From  God's  Love,  which  Israel  have  doubted,  the 
prophet  passes  to  His  Majesty  or  Holiness,  which  they 
have  wronged.  Now  it  is  very  remarkable  that  the 
relation  of  God  to  the  Jews  in  which  the  prophet 
should  see  His  Majesty  illustrated  is  not  only  His 
lordship  over  them  but  His  Fatherhood  :  A  son  honours 
a  father,  and  a  servant  his  lord;    but  if  I  be  Father, 

where  is  My  honour  ?  and  if  I  be  Lord,  where  is  there 

• 

1894,  p.  142,  points  out  that  Gratz,  in  an  article  "  Die  Anfange 
der  Nabataer-Herrschaft  "  in  the  Monatschrift  fur  Wtssenschaft  u. 
Geschichte  des  Judenthums,  1 875,  pp.  60-66,  had  already  explained 
"Mai."  i.  1-5  as  describing  the  conquest  of  Edom  by  the  Nabateans. 
This  is  adopted  by  Buhl  in  his  Gesch,  der  Edomiter,  p.  79. 

'  The  verb  in  the  feminine  indicates  that  the  population  of  Edom 
is  meant. 


"Mal."i.-iv.]     PROPHECY  WITHIN  THE  LAW  353 

reverence  for  Me  ?  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts}  We  are 
so  accustomed  to  associate  with  the  Divine  Fatherhood 
only  ideas  of  love  and  pity  that  the  use  of  the  relation 
to  illustrate  not  love  but  Majesty,  and  the  setting  of  it  in 
parallel  to  the  Divine  Kingship,  may  seem  to  us  strange. 
Yet  this  was  very  natural  to  Israel.  In  the  old  Semitic 
world,  even  to  the  human  parent,  honour  was  due  before 
love.  Honour  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  said  the  Fifth 
Commandment ;  and  when,  after  long  shyness  to  do 
so,  Israel  at  last  ventured  to  claim  Jehovah  as  the 
Father  of  His  people,  it  was  at  first  rather  with  the 
view  of  increasing  their  sense  of  His  authority  and 
their  duty  of  reverencing  Him,  than  with  the  view  of 
bringing  Him  near  to  their  hearts  and  assuring  them 
of  His  tenderness.  The  latter  elements,  it  is  true, 
^yere  not  absent  from  the  conception.  But  even  in 
the  Psalter,  in  which  we  find  the  most  intimate  and 
tender  fellowship  of  the  believer  with  God,  there  is 
only  one  passage  in  which  His  love  for  His  own  is 
compared  to  the  love  of  a  human  father.^  And  in 
the  other  very  few  passages  of  the  Old  Testament 
where  He  is  revealed  or  appealed  to  as  the  Father 
of  the  nation,  it  is,  with  two  exceptions,^  in  order 
either  to  emphasise  His  creation  of  Israel  or  His  disci- 
pline. So  in  Jeremiah,"^  and  in  an  anonymous  prophet 
of  the  same  period  perhaps  as  ^'  Malachi."  ^  This 
hesitation  to  ascribe  to  God  the  name  of  Father,  and 


1  i.  6. 

^  Psalm  ciii.  9.  In  Psalm  Ixxiii.  15  believers  are  called  His 
children ;  but  elsewhere  sonship  is  claimed  only  for  the  king — 
ii.  7,  Ixxxix.  27  f. 

^  Hosea  xi.  i  ff.  (though  even  here  the  idea  of  discipline  is  present) 
and  Isa.  Ixiii.    16.  *  iii.  4. 

*  Isa.  Ixiv.  8,  cf.  Deut.  xxxii.  11   where  the  disciphne  of  Israel  by 

VOL.  II.  23 


354  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

this  severe  conception  of  what  Fatherhood  meant,  was 
perhaps  needful  for  Israel  in  face  of  the  sensuous 
ideas  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood  cherished  by  their 
heathen  neighbours.^  But,  however  this  may  be,  the 
infrequency  and  austerity  of  Israel's  conception  of 
God's  Fatherhood,  in  contrast  with  that  of  Christianity, 
enables  us  to  understand  why  "  Malachi "  should 
employ  the  relation  as  proof,  not  of  the  Love,  but  of 
the  Majesty  and  Holiness  of  Jehovah. 

This  Majesty  and  this  Holiness  have  been  wronged, 
he  says,  by  low  thoughts  of  God's  altar,  and  by  offering 
upon  it,  with  untroubled  conscience,  cheap  and  blem- 
ished sacrifices.  The  people  would  have  been  ashamed 
to  present  such  to  their  Persian  governor :  how  can 
God  be  pleased  with  them  ?  Better  that  sacrifice 
should  cease  than  that  such  offerings  should  be 
presented  in  such  a  spirit  I  Is  there  no  one,  cries  the 
prophet,  to  close  the  doors  of  the  Temple  altogether,  so 
that  the  altar  smoke  not  in  vain  ? 

The  passage  shows  us  what  a  change  has  passed 
over  the  spirit  of  Israel  since  prophecy  first  attacked 
the  sacrificial  ritual.  We  remember  how  Amos  would 
have  swept  it  all  away  as  an  abomination  to  God.^ 
So,  too,  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah.  But  their  reason  for 
this  was  very  different  from  *'  Malachi's."  Their 
contemporaries  were  assiduous  and  lavish  in  sacrificing, 
and  were  devoted  to  the  Temple  and  the  ritual  with 
a  fanaticism  which  made  them  forget  that  Jehovah's 
demands   upon    His    people    were   righteousness   and 

Jehovah,  shaking  them  out  of  their  desert  circumstance  and  tempting 
them  to  their  great  career  in  Palestine,  is  likened  to  the  father-eagle's 
training  of  his  new-fledged  brood  to  fly :  A.V.  mother-eagle. 

*  Cf.  Cheyne,  Origin  of  the  Psalter,  p.  305,  n.  O. 

"  Vol.  I.,  Chap.  IX. 


"Mal."i.-iv.]    PROPHECY  WITHIN  THE  LAW  355 

the  service  of  the  weak.  But  ''  Malachi  "  condemns 
his  generation  for  depreciating  the  Temple,  and 
for  being  stingy  and  fraudulent  in  their  offerings. 
Certainly  the  post-exilic  prophet  assumes  a  different 
attitude  to  the  ritual  from  that  of  his  predecessors  in 
ancient  Israel.  They  wished  it  all  abolished,  and 
placed  the  chief  duties  of  Israel  towards  God  in  civic 
justice  and  mercy.  But  he  emphasises  it  as  the  first 
duty  of  the  people  towards  God,  and  sees  in  their 
neglect  the  reason  of  their  misfortunes  and  the  cause 
of  their  coming  doom.  In  this  change  which  has 
come  over  prophecy  we  must  admit  the  growing 
influence  of  the  Law.  From  Ezekiel  onwards  the 
prophets  become  more  ecclesiastical  and  legal.  And 
though  at  first  they  do  not  become  less  ethical,  yet 
the  influence  which  was  at  work  upon  them  was  of 
such  a  character  as  was  bound  in  time  to  engross 
their  interest,  and  lead  them  to  remit  the  ethical 
elements  of  their  religion  to  a  place  secondary  to 
the  ceremonial.  We  see  symptoms  of  this  even  in 
'^  Malachi,"  we  shall  find  more  in  Joel,  and  we  know 
how  aggravated  these  symptoms  afterwards  became 
in  all  the  leaders  of  Jewish  religion.  At  the  same 
time  we  ought  to  remember  that  this  change  of 
emphasis,  which  many  will  think  to  be  for  the  worse, 
was  largely  rendered  necessary  by  the  change  of 
temper  in  the  people  to  whom  the  prophets  ministered. 
'*  Malachi "  found  among  his  contemporaries  a  habit  of 
religious  performance  which  was  not  only  slovenly  and 
indecent,  but  mean  and  fraudulent,  and  it  became  his 
first  practical  duty  to  attack  this.  Moreover  the  neglect 
of  the  Temple  was  not  due  to  those  spiritual  con- 
ceptions of  Jehovah  and  those  moral  duties  He  de- 
manded, in  the  interests  of  which  the  older  prophets  had 


356  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

condemned  the  ritual.  At  bottom  the  neglect  of  the 
Temple  was  due  to  the  very  same  reasons  as  the 
superstitious  zeal  and  fanaticism  in  sacrificing  which 
the  older  prophets  had  attacked — false  ideas,  namely, 
of  God  Himself,  and  of  what  was  due  to  Him  from 
His  people.  And  on  these  grounds,  therefore,  we  may 
say  that  ''  Malachi "  was  performing  for  his  generation 
as  needful  and  as  Divine  a  work  as  Amos  and  Isaiah 
had  performed  for  theirs.  Only,  be  it  admitted,  the 
direction  of  ''  Malachi's  "  emphasis  was  more  dangerous 
for  religion  than  that  of  the  emphasis  of  Amos  or 
Isaiah.  How  liable  the  practice  he  inculcated  was  to 
exaggeration  and  abuse  is  sadly  proved  in  the  later 
history  of  his  people  :  it  was  against  that  exaggeration, 
grown  great  and  obdurate  through  three  centuries,  that 
Jesus  delivered  His  most  unsparing  words. 

A  son  honours  a  father^  and  a  servant  his  lord.  But 
if  I  am  Father^  where  is  My  honour  ?  and  if  I  am  Lordy 
where  is  reverence  for  Me  ?  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts  to  you, 
O  priests,  who  despise  My  Name.  Ye  say,  "  How  then 
have  we  despised  Thy  Name  ? "  Ye  are  bringing 
polluted  food  to  Mine  Altar.  Ye  say,  ^^  How  have  we 
polluted  Thee?^^^  By  saying,^  ^^  The  Table  of  Jehovah 
may  be  despised  ^\'  and  when  ye  bring  a  blind  beast  to 
sacrifice,  "  No  harm .' "  or  when  ye  bring  a  lame  or 
sick  one,  ^^ No  harm!"^  Pray,  take  it  to  thy  Satrap: 
will  he  be  pleased  with  thee,  or  accept  thy  person  ?  saith 


'  Or  used  polluted  things  with  respect  to  Thee.  For  similar  con- 
struction see  Zech.  vii.  5  :  '•iin^V.  This  in  answer  to  Wellhausen, 
who,  on  the  ground  that  the  phrase  gives  ?N3  a  wrong  object  and 
destroys  the  connection,  deletes  it.  Further  he  takes  t'NiJD,  not  in 
the  sense  of  pollution,  but  as  equivalent  to  HTliJ,  despised. 

^  Obviously  itt  their  hearts  =  thinking. 

*  LXX.  is  there  no  harm  ? 


' Mai." i.-iv.]     PROPHECY  WITHIN   THE  LAW  357 


Jehovah  of  Hosts.     But  now,  propitiate^  God,   that  He 

may  be  gracious  to  us.     When  things  like  this  come  from 

your  hands,  can  He  accept  your  persons  ?  saith  Jehovah 

of  Hosts.     Who  is  there  among  you  to  close  the  doors 

of  the  Temple  altogether,  that  ye  kindle  not  Mine  Altar 

in  vain  ?     I  have  no  pleasure  in  you,  saith  Jehovah  of 

Hosts,  and  I  will  not  accept  an  offering  from  your  hands. 

For  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  and  to  its  setting  My 

Name   is  glorified'^  among  the  nations;   and  in   every 

sacred  place  ^  incense  is  offered  to  My  Name,  and  a  pure 

offering:'^  for  great   is   My   Name  among  the  nations, 

saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts.     But  ye  are  profaning  it,  in  that 

ye  think  ^  that  the  Table  of  the  Lord  is  polluted,  and  ^  its 

food  contemptible.     And  ye  say.  What  a  iveariness  !  and 

ye  sniff  at  it^  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts.     When  ye  bring 

what  has  been  plundered^  and  the  lame  and  the  diseased, 

yea,  when  ye  so  bring  an  offering,  can  I  accept  it  with 

grace  from  your  hands?  saith  Jehovah.     Cursed  be  the 

cheat  in  whose  flock  is  a  male  beast  and  he  vows  it,^  and 

'  Pacify  the  face  of,  as  in  Zechariah. 

^  So  LXX.  Heb.  is  great,  but  the  phrase  is  probably  written  by 
mistake  from  the  instance  further  on :  is  glorified  could  scarcely  have 
been  used  in  the  very  literal  version  of  the  LXX.  unless  it  had  been 
found  in  the  original. 

^  DipD,  here  to  be  taken  in  the  sense  it  bears  in  Arabic  of  sacred 
place.     See  on  Zeph.  ii.  11 :  above,  p.  64,  n.8. 

^  Wellhausen  deletes  ^yO  as  a  gloss  on  ")DpD,  and  the  vau  before 
nmrD.  ^  Heb.  say. 

^  Heb.  also  has  12''J,  found  besides  only  in  Keri  of  Isa.  Ivii,  19. 
But  Robertson  Smith  {O.TJ.C,  2,  p.  444)  is  probably  right  in  consider- 
ing this  an  error  for  HTHJ,  which  has  kept  its  place  after  the  correction 
was  inserted. 

This  clause  is  obscure,  and  comes   in    awkwardly   before   that 
which  follows  it.     Wellhausen  omits. 

'  ?-1T^.  Wellhausen  emends  "l.l.VnTltij  borrowing  the  first  three 
letters  from  the  previous  word.     LXX.  apirayiJ.a.Ta,. 

^  LXX. 


358  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

slays  for  the  Lord  a  miserable  beast}  For  a  great  King 
am  I,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  and  My  Name  is  reverenced 
among  the  nations. 

Before  we  pass  from  this  passage  we  must  notice  in  it 
one  very  remarkable  feature — perhaps  the  most  original 
contribution  which  the  Book  of  ^*  Malachi "  makes 
to  the  development  of  prophecy.  In  contrast  to  the 
irreverence  of  Israel  and  the  wrong  they  do  to 
Jehovah's  Holiness,  He  Himself  asserts  that  not  only 
is  His  Name  great  and  glorified  among  the  heathen,  from 
the  rising  to  the  setting  of  the  sun,  but  that  in  every 
sacred  place  incense  and  a  pure  offering  are  offered  to 
His  Name.  This  is  so  novel  a  statement,  and,  we  may 
truly  say,  so  startling,  that  it  is  not  wonderful  that 
the  attempt  should  have  been  made  to  interpret  it,  not 
of  the  prophet's  own  day,  but  of  the  Messianic  age 
and  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  So,  many  of  the  Christian 
Fathers,  from  Justin  and  Irenseus  to  Theodoret  and 
Augustine ;  ^  so,  our  own  Authorised  Version,  which 
boldly  throws  the  verbs  into  the  future  ;  and  so,  many 
modern  interpreters  like  Pusey,  who  declares  that  the 
style  is  ''a  vivid  present  such  as  is  often  used  to 
describe  the  future ;  but  the  things  spoken  of  show  it 
to  be  future."  All  these  take  the  passage  to  be  an 
anticipation  of  Christ's  parables  declaring  the  rejection 
of  the  Jews  and  ingathering  of  the  Gentiles  to  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  and  of  the  argument  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  that  the  bleeding  and  defective  offerings 
of  the  Jews  were  abrogated  by  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Cross.  But  such  an  exegesis  is  only  possible  by 
perverting  the  text  and  misreading  the  whole  argument 
of  the  prophet.     Not  only  are  the  verbs  of  the  original 

»  Cf.  Lev.  iii.  i,  6. 

*  Quoted  by  Pusey,  in  loco. 


"Mal."i.-iv.]     PROPHECY  WITHIN   THE  LAW  359 

in  the  present  tense— so  also  in  the  early  versions — 
but  the  prophet  is  obviously  contrasting  the  contempt 
of  God's  own  people  for  Himself  and  His  institutions 
with  the  reverence  paid  to  His  Name  among  the 
heathen.  It  is  not  the  mere  question  of  there  being 
righteous  people  in  every  nation,  well-pleasing  to 
Jehovah  because  of  their  lives.  The  very  sacrifices  of 
the  heathen  are  pure  and  acceptable  to  Him.  Never 
have  we  had  in  prophecy,  even  the  most  far-seeing  and 
evangelical,  a  statement  so  generous  and  so  catholic  as 
this.  Why  it  should  appear  only  now  in  the  history 
of  prophecy  is  a  question  we  are  unable  to  answer  with 
certainty.  Many  have  seen  in  it  the  result  of  Israel's 
intercourse  with  their  tolerant  and  religious  masters 
the  Persians.  None  of  the  Persian  kings  had  up  to 
this  time  persecuted  the  Jews,  and  numbers  of  pious 
and  large-minded  Israelites  must  have  had  opportunity 
of  acquaintance  with  the  very  pure  doctrines  of  the 
Persian  religion,  among  which  it  is  said  that  there 
was  already  numbered  the  recognition  of  true  piety  in 
men  of  all  rehgions.^  If  Paul  derived  from  his  Hellenic 
culture  the  knowledge  which  made  it  possible  for  him 
to  speak  as  he  did  in  Athens  of  the  religiousness  of 
the  Gentiles,  it  was  just  as  probable  that  Jews  who  had 
come  within  the  experience  of  a  still  purer  Aryan 
faith  should  utter  an  even  more  emphatic  acknow- 
ledgment that  the  One  True  God  had  those  who 
served  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth  all  over  the  world. 
But,  whatever  foreign  influences  may  have  ripened 
such  a  faith  in  Israel,  we  must  not  forget  that  its 
roots  were  struck  deep  in  the  native  soil  of  their 
religion.     From  the  first  they  had  known  their  God  as 

^  See  Cheyne,  Origin  of  the  Psalter,  292  and  305  f. 


36o  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


a  God  of  a  grace  so  infinite  that  it  was  impossible  it 
should  be  exhausted  on  themselves.  If  His  righteous- 
ness, as  Amos  showed,  was  over  all  the  Syrian  states, 
and  His  pity  and  His  power  to  convert,  as  Isaiah 
showed,  covered  even  the  cities  of  Phoenicia,  the  great 
Evangelist  of  the  Exile  could  declare  that  He  quenched 
not  the  smoking  wicks  of  the  dim  heathen  faiths. 

As  interesting,  however,  as  the  origin  of  "  Malachi's  " 
attitude  to  the  heathen,  are  two  other  points  about  it. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  remarkable  that  it  should 
occur,  especially  in  the  form  of  emphasising  the  purity 
of  heathen  sacrifices,  in  a  book  which  lays  such 
heavy  stress  upon  the  Jewish  Temple  and  ritual.  This 
is  a  warning  to  us  not  to  judge  harshly  the  so-called 
legal  age  of  Jewish  religion,  nor  to  despise  the 
prophets  who  have  come  under  the  influence  of  the 
Law.  And  in  the  second  place,  we  perceive  in  this 
statement  a  step  towards  the  fuller  acknowledgment 
of  Gentile  religiousness  which  we  find  in  the  Book 
of  Jonah.  It  is  strange  that  none  of  the  post-exilic 
Psalms  strike  the  same  note.  They  often  predict  the 
conversion  of  the  heathen  ;  but  they  do  not  recognise 
their  native  reverence  and  piety.  Perhaps  the  reason 
is  that  in  a  body  of  song,  collected  for  the  national 
service,  such  a  feature  would  be  out  of  place. 

3.  The  Priesthood  of  Knowledge  (Chap.  ii.  r-9). 

In  the  third  section  of  his  book  "  Malachi "  addresses 
himself  to  the  priests.  He  charges  them  not  only 
with  irreverence  and  slovenliness  in  their  discharge 
of  the  Temple  service — for  this  he  appears  to  intend 
by  the  phrase  filth  of  your  feasts — but  with  the  neglect 
of  their  intellectual  duties  to  the  people.  77?^  lips  of 
a  priest  guard  knowledge y  and  men  seek  instruction  from 


"Mal."i.-iv.]     PROPHECY  WITHIN  THE  LAW  361 


his  mouth,  for  he  is  the  Angel — the  revealing  Angel — 
of  Jehovah  of  Hosts.  Once  more,  what  a  remarkable 
saying  to  come  from  the  legal  age  of  Israel's  religion, 
and  from  a  writer  who  so  emphasises  the  ceremonial 
law  1  In  all  the  range  of  prophecy  there  is  not  any 
more  in  harmony  with  the  prophetic  ideal.  How 
needed  it  is  in  our  own  age  ! — needed  against  those  two 
extremes  of  religion  from  which  we  suffer,  the  limitation 
of  the  ideal  of  priesthood  to  the  communication  of  a 
magic  grace,  and  its  evaporation  in  a  vague  religiosity 
from  which  the  intellect  is  excluded  as  if  it  were  perilous, 
worldly  and  devihsh.^  '^Surrender  of  the  intellect" 
indeed  !  This  is  the  burial  of  the  talent  in  the  napkin, 
and,  as  in  the  parable  of  Christ,  it  is  still  in  our  day 
preached  and  practised  by  the  men  of  one  talent. 
Religion  needs  all  the  brains  we  poor  mortals  can  put 
into  it.  There  is  a  priesthood  of  knowledge,  a  priest- 
hood of  the  intellect,  says  ''  Malachi,"  and  he  makes  this 
a  large  part  of  God's  covenant  with  Levi.  Every  priest 
of  God  is  a  priest  of  truth ;  and  it  is  very  largely 
by  the  Christian  ministry's  neglect  of  their  intellec- 
tual duties  that  so  much  irreligion  prevails.  As  in 
^'  Malachi's "  day,  so  now,  "  the  laity  take  hurt  and 
hindrance  by  our  neghgence."  ^  And  just  as  he  points 
out,  so  with  ourselves,  the  consequence  is  the  growing 
indifference  with  which  large  bodies  of  the  Christian 
ministry  are  regarded  by  the  thoughtful  portions  both 
of  our  labouring  and  professional  classes.  Were  the 
ministers  of  all  the  Churches  to  awake  to  their  ideal 

*  Isaiah  i. — xxxix.  (Expositor's  Bible),  p.  188. 

^  See  most  admirable  remarks  on  this  subject  in  Ai-chdeacon 
Wilson's  Essays  and  Addi-esses,  No.  III.  "  The  Need  of  giving  Higher 
Biblical  Teaching,  and  Instruction  on  the  Fundamental  Questions  of 
Religion  and  Christianity."    London:  Macmillan,  1887. 


362  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

in  this  matter,  there  would  surely  come  a  very  great 
revival  of  religion  among  us. 

And  now  this  Charge  for  yon ^  O  priests :  If  ye  hear 
not,  and  lay  not  to  heart  to  give  glory  to  My  Name,  saith 
Jehovah  of  Hosts^  I  will  send  upon  you  the  curse,  and 
will  curse  your  blessings — yea,  I  have  cursed  them  ^—for 
none  of  you  layeth  it  to  heart.  Behold,  I  .  .  .you  .  .  ? 
and  I  will  scatter  filth  in  your  faces,  the  filth  of  your 
feasts.  .  .  .^  And  ye  shall  know  that  I  have  sent  to  you 
this  Charge,  to  be  My  covenant  with  Levi,^  saith  Jehovah 
of  Hosts.  My  covenant  was  with  him  life  and  peace,^ 
and  I  gave  them  to  him,  fear  and  he  feared  Me,  and 
humbled  himself  before  My  Name^  The  revelation  of 
truth  was  in  his  mouth,  and  wickedness  was  not  found 
zipon  his  lips.  In  whole-heartedness''  and  integrity  he 
walked  with  Me,  and  turned  many  from  iniquity.  For 
the  lips  of  a  priest  guard  knowledge,  and  men  seek 
instruction  ^  from  his   mouth,  for  he   is  the  Angel  of 

^  Doubtful.  LXX.  adds  /cat  otecr/ce5d(ra>  ttjv  evKoyiav  v/mQv  Kat  ovk 
^(jTai  ip  ii/jup  :  obvious  redundancy,  if  not  mere  dittography. 

2  An  obscure  phrase,  X;lT^■n^?  D2^  "IJ^J  ^J^in,  BehoM,  I  rekike 
you  the  seed.  LXX.  Behold',  I  separate  from  you  the  arm  or  shoulder, 
reading  piT  for  yiT  and  perhaps  yiil  for  "ij/il,  both  of  which  read- 
ings Wellhausen  adopts,  and  Ewald  the  former.  The  reference  may 
be  to  the  arm  of  the  priest  raised  in  blessing.  Orelli  reads  seed= 
posterity.  It  may  mean  the  whole  seed  or  class  or  kind  of  the  priests. 
The  next  clause  tempts  one  to  suppose  that  yiTHTlK  contains  the 
verb  of  this  one,  as  if  scattering  something. 

8  Heb.  V^«  DDflN  ^m\  and  one  shall  bear  you  to  it.  Hitzig: 
filth  shall  be  cast  on  them,  and  they  on  the  filth. 

*  Others  would  render  My  covenant  being  ivith  Levi.  Wellhausen  : 
for  My  covenant  ivas  with  Levi.  But  this  new  Charge  or  covenant 
seems  contrasted  with  a  former  covenant  in  the  next  verse. 

^  Num.  XXV.  12. 

^  This  sentence  is  a  literal  translation  of  the  Hebrew.  With  other 
punctuation  Wellhausen  renders  My  covenant  ivas  with  him,  life  and 
peace  I  gave  them  to  him,  fear  .  .  . 

^  Or  peace,  DvK^,  '  Or  revelation,  Torah. 


" Mai." i.-iv.]     PROPHECY  WITHIN   THE  LAW  363 

Jehovah  of  Hosts.  But  ye  have  turned  from  the  way,  ye 
have  tripped  up  many  by  the  Tcrah,  ye  have  spoiled  the 
covenant  of  Levi,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts.  And  I  on  My 
part  ^  have  made  you  contemptible  to  all  the  people,  and 
abased  in  proportion  as  ye  kept  not  My  ways  and  had 
respect  of  persons  in  delivering  your  Tor  ah. 

4.  The  Cruelty  of  Divorce  (Chap.  ii.   10-17). 

In  his  fourth  section,  upon  his  countrymen's  frequent 
divorce  of  their  native  wives  in  order  to  marry  into  the 
influential  families  of  their  half-heathen  neighbours,^ 
^'  Malachi "  makes  another  of  those  wide  and  spiritual 
utterances  which  so  distinguish  his  prophecy  and 
redeem  his  age  from  the  charge  of  legalism  that  is  so 
often  brought  against  it.  To  him  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  is  not  merely  a  relation  of  power  and  authority, 
requiring  reverence  from  the  nation.  It  constitutes 
the  members  of  the  nation  one  close  brotherhood,  and 
against  this  divorce  is  a  crime  and  unnatural  cruelty. 
Jehovah  makes  the  wife  of  a  man's  youth  his  mate  for 
life  and  his  wife  by  covenant.  He  hates  divorce,  and 
His  altar  is  so  wetted  by  the  tears  of  the  wronged 
women  of  Israel  that  the  gifts  upon  it  are  no  more 
acceptable  in  His  sight.  No  higher  word  on  marriage 
was  spoken  except  by  Christ  Himself.  It  breathes 
the  spirit  of  our  Lord's  utterance  :  if  we  were  sure  of 
the  text  of  ver.  1 5,  we  might  almost  say  that  it  antici- 
pated the  letter.  Certain  verses,  11-13^,  which  disturb 
the  argument  by  bringing  in  the  marriages  with  heathen 
wives  are  omitted  in  the  following  translation,  and  will 
be  given  separately. 

Have  ive  not  all  One  Father?     Hath   not  One  God 

'   ^J^?■D31  :  cf.  Amos  iv.  =*  See  above,  p.  344. 


364  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

created  its  ?  Why  then  are  ive  tmfaithftil  to  one  another^ 
profaning  the  covenant  of  onr  fathers  ?  .  .  }  Ye  cover  with 
tears  the  altar  of  Jehovah ^  with  weeping  and  with  groan- 
ing, because  respect  is  no  longer  had  to  the  offering,  and 
acceptable  gifts  are  not  taken  from  your  hands.  And 
ye  say,  ^'  Why  ?  "  Because  Jehovah  has  been  witness 
between  thee  and  the  wife  of  thy  youth,  with  whom  thou 
hast  broken  faith,  though  she  is  thy  mate  ^  and  thy  wife 
by  covenant.  And  .  .  .^  And  what  is  the  one  seeking? 
A  Divine  Seed.  Take  heed,  then,  to  your  spirit,  and  be 
not  unfaithful  to  the  wife  of  thy  youth.^     For  I  hate 

^  Here  occur  the  two  verses  and  a  clause,  Ii-I3a,  upon  the 
foreign  marriages,  which  seem  to  be  an  intrusion. 

2  See  Vol.  I.,  p.  259. 

^  Heb.  literally  :  And  not  one  did,  and  a  remnant  of  spirit  was  his; 
which  (l)  A.V.  renders  :  And  did  not  he  make  one  ?  Yet  he  had  the 
residue  of  the  spirit,  which  Pusey  accepts  and  applies  to  Adam  and 
Eve,  interpreting  the  second  clause  as  the  breath  of  life,  by  which 
Adam  became  a  living  soul  (Gen.  ii.  7).  In  Gen.  i,  27  Adam  and  Eve 
are  called  one.  In  that  case  the  meaning  would  be  that  the  law  of 
marriage  was  prior  to  that  of  divorce,  as  in  the  words  of  our  Lord, 
Matt.  xix.  4-6.  (2)  The  Hebrew  might  be  rendered,  Not  one  has  done 
this  who  had  any  spirit  left  in  him.  So  Hitzig  and  Orelli.  In  that 
case  the  following  clauses  of  the  verse  are  referred  to  Abraham. 
"  But  what  about  the  One  ?  "  (LXX.  insert  ye  say  after  But) — the  one 
who  did  put  away  his  wife.  Answer :  He  was  seeking  a  Divine  seed. 
The  objection  to  this  interpretation  is  that  Abraham  did  not  cast  off 
the  wife  of  his  youth,  Sarah,  but  the  foreigner  Hagar.  (3)  Ewald 
made  a  very  different  proposal  :  And  has  not  One  created  them,  and 
all  the  Spirit  (cf.  Zeph.  i.  4)  is  His  ?  And  what  doth  the  One  seek  ?  A 
Divine  seed.  So  Reinke.  Similarly  Kirkpatrick  {Doct.  of  the  Proph., 
p.  502) :  And  did  not  One  make  [you  both]  ?  And  why  [did]  the  One  [do 
so]  ?  Seeking  a  goodly  seed.  (4)  Wellhausen  goes  further  along  the 
same  line.  Reading  vhr\  for  i^7\  and  "IN&^^I  for  "W^),  and  1J^  for  h, 
he  translates  :  Hath  not  the  same  God  created  and  sustained  yotir 
(?  onr)  breath  ?    And  what  does  He  desire  ?     A  seed  of  God, 

*  Literally:  let  none  be  unfaithful  to  the  wife  of  thy  youth,  a  curious 
instance  of  the  Hebrew  habit  of  mixing  the  pronominal  references. 
Wellhausen's  emendation  is  unnecessary. 


" Mai." i.-iv.]     PROPHECY  WITHIN  THE  LAW  365 

divorce^  saith  Jehovah^  God  of  Israel^  and  that  a  man 
cover  his  clothing^  with  cruelty,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts. 
So  take  heed  to  your  spirit,  and  deal  not  faithlessly. 

The  verses  omitted  in  the  above  translation  treat 
of  the  foreign  marriages,  which  led  to  this  frequent 
divorce  by  the  Jews  of  their  native  wives.  So  far,  of 
course,  they  are  relevant  to  the  subject  of  the  passage. 
But  they  obviously  disturb  its  argument,  as  already 
pointed  out.^  They  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
principle  from  which  it  starts  that  Jehovah  is  the  Father 
of  the  whole  of  Israel.  Remove  them  and  the  awkward 
clause  in  ver.  13^,  by  which  some  editor  has  tried  to 
connect  them  with  the  rest  of  the  paragraph,  and 
the  latter  runs  smoothly.  The  motive  of  their  later 
addition  is  apparent,  if  not  justifiable.  Here  they  are 
by  themselves : — 

Judah  was  faithless,  and  abomination  was  practised 
in  Israel^  and  in  Jerusalem,  for  Judah  hath  defiled  the 
sanctuary  of  Jehovah,  which  was  dear  to  Him,  and  hath 
married  the  daughter  of  a  strange  god.  May  Jehovah 
cut  off  from  the  man,  who  doeth  this,  witness  and 
champion  ^  from  the  tents  of  Jacob,  and  offerer  of  sacri- 
fices to  Jehovah  of  Hosts. ^ 

5.  "  Where  is  the  God  of  Judgment  ?  " 
(Chap.  ii.  17 — iii.  5). 

In  this  section  ^^  Malachi "  turns  from  the  sinners 
of  his  people  to  those  who  weary  Jehovah  with  the 

*  See  Gesenius  and  Ewald  for  Arabic  analogies  for  the  use  of 
clothing  =  wife. 

^  See  above,  p.  340.  ^  Wellhausen  omits. 

*  Heb.  nbyi  "iVj  caller  and  answerer.  But  LXX.  read  *15^,  witness 
(see  iii.  5),  though  it  pointed  it  differently. 

^  13a,  But  secondly  ye  do  this,  is  the  obvious  addition  of  the  editor 
in  order  to  connect  his  intrusion  with  what  follows. 


366  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

complaint  that  sin  is  successful,  or,  as  they  put  it, 
Every  one  that  does  evil  is  good  in  the  eyes  of  Jehovah^ 
and  He  delighteth  in  them-,  and  again,  Where  is  the 
God  of  Judgment?  The  answer  is,  The  Lord  Himself 
shall  come.  His  Angel  shall  prepare  His  way  before 
Him,  and  suddenly  shall  the  Lord  come  to  His  Temple. 
His  coming  shall  be  for  judgment,  terrible  and 
searching.  Its  first  object  (note  the  order)  shall  be 
the  cleansing  of  the  priesthood,  that  proper  sacrifices 
may  be  established,  and  its  second  the  purging  of  the 
immorality  of  the  people.  Mark  that  although  the 
coming  of  the  Angel  is  said  to  precede  that  of  Jehovah 
Himself,  there  is  the  same  blending  of  the  two  as 
we  have  seen  in  previous  accounts  of  angels.^  It  is 
uncertain  whether  this  section  closes  with  ver.  5  or  6  : 
the  latter  goes  equally  well  with  it  and  with  the 
following  section. 

Ye  have  wearied  Jehovah  with  your  words;  and  ye 
say^  "  In  what  have  we  wearied  Him  ?  "  In  that  ye  say, 
'*  Every  one  that  does  evil  is  good  in  the  eyes  of  Jehovah, 
and  He  delighteth  in  them  "y  or  else^  "  Where  is  the  God 
of  Judgment  ?  "  Behold,  I  will  send  My  Angel,  to 
prepare  the  way  before  Me,  and  suddenly  shall  come  to 
His  Temple  the  Lord  whom  ye  seek  and  the  Angel  of 
the  Covenant  whom  ye  desire.  Behold,  He  comes  I  saith 
Jehovah  of  Hosts.  But  ivho  may  bear  the  day  of  His 
coming^  and  who  stand  when  He  appears  ?  For  He  is 
like  the  fire  of  the  smelter  and  the  acid  of  the  fullers.  He 
takes  His  seat  to  smelt  and  to  purge ;  ^  and  He  ivill purge 
the  sons  of  Levi,  and  wash  them  out  like  gold  or  silver, 


>  See  above,  pp.  311,  313  f. 

'  Delete  silver',  the  longer  LXX.  text  shows  how  easily  it  was 
added. 


"Mal,"i.-iv.]    PROPHECY  WITHIN  THE  LAW  367 

and  they  shall  be  to  Jehovah  bringers  of  an  offering  in 
righteousness.  And  the  offering  ofjudah  and  Jerusalem 
shall  be  pleasing  to  Jehovah^  as  in  the  days  of  old  and 
as  in  long  past  years.  And  I  will  come  near  you  to 
judgment^  and  I  will  be  a  swift  witness  against  the 
sorcerers  and  the  adulterers  and  the  perjurers,  and 
against  those  who  wrong  the  hireling  in  his  wage,  and 
the  widow  and  the  orphan,  and  oppress  the  stranger, 
and  fear  not  Me,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts. 

6.  Repentance  by  Tithes  (Chap.  iii.  6-12). 

This  section  ought  perhaps  to  follow  on  to  the 
preceding.  Those  whom  it  blames  for  not  paying 
the  Temple  tithes  may  be  the  sceptics  addressed  in 
the  previous  section,  who  have  stopped  their  dues 
to  Jehovah  out  of  sheer  disappointment  that  He  does 
nothing.  And  ver.  6,  which  goes  well  with  either 
section,  may  be  the  joint  between  the  two.  However 
this  be,  the  new  section  enforces  the  need  of  the 
people's  repentance  and  return  to  God,  if  He  is  to 
return  to  them.  And  when  they  ask,  how  are  they 
to  return,  "  Malachi "  plainly  answers.  By  the  pay- 
ment of  the  tithes  they  have  not  paid.  In  withhold- 
ing these  they  robbed  God,  and  to  this,  their  crime, 
are  due  the  locusts  and  bad  seasons  which  have 
afflicted  them.  In  our  temptation  to  see  in*  this  a 
purely  legal  spirit,  let  us  remember  that  the  neglect 
to  pay  the  tithes  was  due  to  a  religious  cause,  unbelief 
in  Jehovah,  and  that  the  return  to  belief  in  Him  could 
not  therefore  be  shown  in  a  more  practical  way  than 
by  the  payment  of  tithes.  This  is  not  prophecy  subject 
to  the  Law,  but  prophecy  employing  the  means  and 
vehicles  of  grace  with  which  the  Law  at  that  time 
provided  the  people. 


368  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETB 

For  I  Jehovah  have  not  changed,  but  ye  sons  of  Jacob 
have  not  done  with  {!)}  In  the  days  of  your  fathers  ye 
turned  from  My  statutes  and  did  not  keep  them.  Retutm 
to  Me,  and  I  will  return  to  you,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts. 
But  you  say,  "  How  then  shall  we  return  ? "  Can  a 
man  rob  ^  God  ?  yet  ye  are  robbing  Me.  But  ye  say, 
"  In  what  have  we  robbed  Thee  ?  "  In  the  tithe  and  the 
tribute?  With  the  curse  are  ye  cursed,  and  yet  Me  ye  are 
robbing,  the  whole  people  of  you.  Bring  in  the  whole  tithe 
to  the  storehouse,  that  there  may  be  provision^  in  My 
House,  and  pray,  prove  Me  in  this,  saith  Jehovah  of 
Hosts — whether  I  will  not  open  to  you  the  windows  of 
heaven,  and  pour  blessing  upon  you  till  there  is  no  more 
need.  And  I  will  check  for  you  the  devourer,^  and  he 
shall  not  destroy  for  you  the  fruit  of  the  ground,  nor  the 
vine  in  the  field  miscarry,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts.  And 
all  nations  shall  call  you  happy,  for  ye  shall  be  a  land 
of  delight,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts, 


1  Made  an  end  of,  reading  the  verb  as  Pi  el  (Orelli).  LXX.  refrain 
from.  Your  sins  are  understood,  the  sins  which  have  always  charac- 
terised the  people.  LXX.  connects  the  opening  of  the  next  verse  with 
this,  and  with  a  different  reading  of  the  first  word  translates  from 
the  sins  of  yonr  fathers. 

2  Heb.  ynp,  only  here  and  Prov.  xxii.  32.  LXX.  read  Ilpy,  supplant^ 
cheat,  which  Wellhausen  adopts. 

3  nip-"l")rij  the  heave  offering,  the  tax  or  tribute  given  to  the  sanctuary 
or  priests  and  associates  with  the  tithes,  as  here  in  Deut.  xii.  1 1, 
to  be  eaten  by  the  offerer  {ib.  17),  but  in  Ezekiel  by  the  priests 
(xliv.  30) ;  taken  by  the  people  and  the  Levites  to  the  Temple 
treasury  for  the  priests  (Neh.  x.  38,  xii.  44)  :  corn,  wine  and  oil.  In 
the  Priestly  Writing  it  signifies  the  part  of  each  sacrifice  which  was 
the  priests'  due.  Ezekiel  also  uses  it  of  the  part  of  the  Holy  Land 
that  fell  to  the  prince  and  priests. 

^  fj'nt?  in  its  later  meaning  :  of.  Job  xxiv.  5  ;  Prov.  xxxi.  15. 
^  I.e.  locust. 


" Mai." i.-iv.]     PROPHECY  WITHIN   THE  LAW  369 

7.  The  Judgment  to  Come 
(Chap.  iii.   13-21   Heb.,  iii.  13 — iv.  2  Eng.). 

This  is  another  charge  to  the  doubters  among  the 
pious  remnant  of  Israel,  who,  seeing  the  success  of 
the  wicked,  said  it  is  vain  to  serve  God.  Deuteronomy 
was  their  Canon,  and  Deuteronomy  said  that  if  men 
sinned  they  decayed,  if  they  were  righteous  they  pro- 
spered. How  different  were  the  facts  of  experience  I 
The  evil  men  succeeded  :  the  good  won  no  gain  by 
their  goodness,  nor  did  their  mourning  for  the  sins  of 
their  people  work  any  effect.  Bitterest  of  all,  they 
had  to  congratulate  wickedness  in  high  places,  and 
Jehovah  Himself  suffered  it  to  go  unpunished.  Such 
things,  says  *'  Malachi,"  spake  they  that  feared  God  to 
each  other — tempted  thereto  by  the  dogmatic  form  of 
their  religion,  and  forgetful  of  all  that  Jeremiah  and 
the  Evangelist  of  the  Exile  had  taught  them  of  the 
value  of  righteous  sufferings.  Nor  does  *'  Malachi  " 
remind  them  of  this.  His  message  is  that  the  Lord 
remembers  them,  has  their  names  written  before  Him, 
and  when  the  day  of  His  action  comes  they  shall  be 
separated  from  the  wicked  and  spared.  This  is  simply 
to  transfer  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  of  Deuteronomy 
to  the  future  and  to  another  dispensation.  Prophecy 
still  works  within  the  Law. 

The  Apocalypse  of  this  last  judgment  is  one  of  the 
grandest  in  all  Scripture.  To  the  wicked  it  shall  be 
a  terrible  fire,  root  and  branch  shall  they  be  burned 
out,  but  to  the  righteous  a  fair  morning  of  God,  as 
when  dawn  comes  to  those  who  have  been  sick  and 
sleepless  through  the  black  night,  and  its  beams  bring 
healing,  even  as  to  the  popular  belief  of  Israel  it  was 

VOL.  II.  24 


370  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

^ — ■■ ^ — V^H» ^ 

the  rays  of  the  morning  sun  which  distilled  the  dew.^ 
They  break  into  life  and  energy,  like  young  calves 
leaping  from  the  dark  pen  into  the  early  sunshine. 
To  this  morning  landscape  a  grim  figure  is  added. 
They  shall  tread  down  the  wicked  and  the  arrogant 
like  ashes  beneath  their  feet. 

Your  words  are  hard  upon  Me,  saith  Jehovah.  Ye 
say,  "  What  have  we  said  against  Thee  ?  "  Ye  have  said, 
**  //  is  vain  to  serve  God,''  and  *'  What  gain  is  it  to  us  to 
have  kept  His  charge,  or  to  have  walked  in  funeral  garb 
before  Jehovah  of  Hosts?  Even  now  we  have  got  to 
congratulate  the  arrogant;  yea,  the  workers  of  wickedness 
are  fortified;,  yea,  they  tempt  God  and  escape  !  "  Such 
things  ^  spake  they  that  fear  Jehovah  to  each  other.  But 
Jehovah  gave  ear  and  heard,  and  a  book  of  remembrance  ^ 
was  written  before  Him  about  those  who  fear  Jehovah, 
and  those  who  keep  in  mind*"  His  Name.  And  they  shall 
be  Mine  own  property,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  in  the  day 
when  I  rise  to  action,^  and  I  will  spare  them  even  as  a 
man  spares  his  son  that  serves  him.  And  ye  shall  once 
more  see  the  difference  between  righteous  and  wicked, 
between  him  that  serves  God  and  him  that  does  not  serve 
Him. 

For,  lot  the  day  is  coming  that  shall  burn  like  a 
furnace,  and  all  the  overweening  and  every  one  that 
works  wickedness  shall  be  as  stubble,  and  the  day  that 
is  coming  shall  devour  them,  saith  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  so 


1  A    dew  of  lights.      See   Isaiah  i.~.xxxix.    (Expositor's   Bible), 

pp.  44^5  f- 

2  So  LXX. ;  Heb.  then.  ^  Ezek.  xiii.  9. 

*  D5^*^,  to  think,  plan,  has  much  the  same  meaning  as  here  in  Isa. 
xiii.  17,  xxxiii.  8,  liii.  3. 

*  Heb.  when  I  am  doing]  but  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is 
used  of  Jehovah's  decisive  and  final  doing,  Psalms  xx.,  xxxii.,  etc. 


"Mal."i.-iv.]     PROPHECY  WITHIN   THE  LAW  371 

that  there  be  left  them  neither  root  nor  branch.  But  to 
you  that  fear  My  Name  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  shall 
rise  with  healing  in  His  wings,  and  ye  shall  go  forth  and 
leap  ^  like  calves  of  the  stall?  And  ye  shall  tread  down 
the  wicked,  for  they  shall  be  as  ashes  ^  beneath  the  soles 
of  your  feet,  in  the  day  that  I  begin  to  do,  saith  Jehovah 
of  Hosts. 

8.  The  Return  of  Elijah 

(Chap.  iii.  22-24  Heb.,  iv.  3-5  Eng.). 

With  his  last  word  the  prophet  significantly  calls 
upon  the  people  to  remember  the  Law.  This  is  their 
one  hope  before  the  coming  of  the  great  and  terrible 
day  of  the  Lord.  But,  in  order  that  the  Law  may  have 
full  effect,  Prophecy  will  be  sent  to  bring  it  home  to 
the  hearts  of  the  people — Prophecy  in  the  person  of 
her  founder  and  most  drastic  representative.  Nothing 
could  better  gather  up  than  this  conjunction  does 
that  mingling  of  Law  and  of  Prophecy  v/hich  we  have 
seen  to  be  so  characteristic  of  the  work  of  ''  Malachi." 
Only  we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  '*  Malachi  " 
expects  this  prophecy,  which  with  the  Law  is  to  work 
the  conversion  of  the  people,  not  in  the  continuance  of 
the  prophetic  succession  by  the  appearance  of  original 
personalities,  developing  further  the  great  principles 
of  their  order,  but  in  the  return  of  the  first  prophet 
Elijah.  This  is  surely  the  confession  of  Prophecy  that 
the  number  of  her  servants  is  exhausted  and  her  message 
to  Israel  fulfilled.  She  can  now  do  no  more  for  the 
people  than  she  has  done.     But  she  will  summon  up 

1  Hab.  i.  8. 

*  See  note  to  Amos  vi.  4:  Vol.  I,,  p,  174,  n.  3. 

"  Or  dust. 


372  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

her  old  energy  and  fire  in  the  return  of  her  most 
powerful  personality,  and  make  one  grand  effort  to 
convert  the  nation  before  the  Lord  come  and  strike 
it  with  judgment. 

Remember  the  Torah  of  Moses,  My  servant,  with 
which  I  charged  him  in  Horeb  for  all  Israel :  statutes 
and  judgments.  Lo  I  I  am  sending  to  you  Elijah  the 
prophet,  before  the  coming  of  the  great  and  terrible  day 
of  Jehovah.  And  he  shall  turn  the  heart  of  the  fathers 
to  the  sons,  and  the  heart  of  the  sons  to  their  fathers,  ere 
I  come  and  strike  the  land  with  the  Ban. 


"Malachi"  makes  this  promise  of  the  Law  in  the 
dialect  of  Deuteronomy :  statutes  and  judgments  with 
which  Jehovah  charged  Moses  for  Israel.  But  the  Law 
he  enforces  is  not  that  which  God  delivered  to  Moses 
on  the  plains  of  Shittira,  but  that  which  He  gave  him 
in  Mount  Horeb.  And  so  it  came  to  pass.  In  a 
very  few  years  after  *' Malachi "  prophesied  Ezra  the 
Scribe  brought  from  Babylon  the  great  Levitical  Code, 
which  appears  to  have  been  arranged  there,  while  the 
colony  in  Jerusalem  were  still  organising  their  life  under 
the  Deuteronomic  legislation.  In  444  b.c.  this  Levitical 
Code,  along  with  Deuteronomy,  became  by  covenant 
between  the  people  and  their  God  their  Canon  and 
Law.  And  in  the  next  of  our  prophets,  Joel,  we  shall 
find  its  full  influence  at  work. 


JOEL 


373 


TJie  Day  of  Jehovah  is  great  and  very  atv/ul,  and  who  may  abide  it  ? 

But  now  the  oracle  of  Jehovah — Turn  ye  to  Me  tvith  all  your  heart, 
and  with  fasting  and  with  weeping  and  with  ntournifig.  And  rend 
your  hearts  and  not  your  garments,  and  turn  to  Jehovah  your  God, 
for  gracious  and  merciful  is  He,  long-suffering  and  abounding  in 
love. 


374 


CHAPTER   XXVII 

THE     BOOK     OF    JOEL 

IN  the  criticism  of  the  Book  of  Joel  there  exist 
differences  of  opinion — upon  its  date,  the  exact 
reference  of  its  statements  and  its  relation  to  parallel 
passages  in  other  prophets — as  wide  as  even  those  by 
which  the  Book  of  Obadiah  has  been  assigned  to  every 
century  between  the  tenth  and  the  fourth  before  Christ.^ 
As  in  the  case  of  Obadiah,  the  problem  is  not  entangled 
with  any  doctrinal  issue  or  question  of  accuracy ;  but 
while  we  saw  that  Obadiah  was  not  involved  in  the 
central  controversy  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  date  of 
the  Law,  not  a  little  in  Joel  turns  upon  the  latter. 
And,  besides,  certain  descriptions  raise  the  large  ques- 
tion between  a  Hteral  and  an  allegorical  interpretation. 
Thus  the  Book  of  Joel  carries  the  student  further  into 
the  problems  of  Old  Testament  Criticism,  and  forms 
an  even  more  excellent  introduction  to  the  latter,  than 
does  the  Book  of  Obadiah. 

I.  The  Date  of  the  Book. 

In  the  history  of  prophecy  the  Book   of  Joel  must 
be  either  very  early  or  very  late,  and  with  few  excep- 
tions the  leading  critics  place  it  either  before  8oo  B.C.  v 
or  after   500.     So  great  a   difference   is  due  to  most 

'  See  above,  Chap.  XIII. 
375 


376  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

substantial  reasons.  Unlike  every  other  prophet, 
except  Haggai,  ''  Malachi  "  and  '^  Zechariah  "  ix. — xiv., 
Joel  mentions  neither  Assyria,  which  emerged  upon 
the  prophetic  horizon  about  760,^  nor  the  Babylonian 
Empire,  which  had  fallen  by  537.  The  presumption 
is  that  he  wrote  before  760  or  after  537.  Unlike 
all  the  prophets,  too,^  Joel  does  not  charge  his 
people  with  civic  or  national  sins ;  nor  does  his  book 
bear  any  trace  of  the  struggle  between  the  righteous 
and  unrighteous  in  Israel,  nor  of  that  between  the 
spiritual  worshippers  of  Jehovah  and  the  idolaters. 
The  book  addresses  an  undivided  nation,  who  know  no 
God  but  Jehovah  ;  and  again  the  presumption  is  that 
Joel  wrote  before  Amos  and  his  successors  had  started 
the  spiritual  antagonisms  which  rent  Israel  in  twain, 
or  after  the  Law  had  been  accepted  by  the  whole  people 
under  Nehemiah.^  The  same  wide  alternative  is  sug- 
gested by  the  style  and  phraseology.  Joel's  Hebrew 
is  simple  and  direct.  Either  he  is  an  early  writer,  or 
imitates  early  writers.  His  book  contains  a  number  of 
phrases  and  verses  identical,  or  nearly  identical,  with 
those  of  prophets  from  Amos  to  "  Malachi."  Either  they 
all  borrowed  from  Joel,  or  he  borrowed  from  them.* 

Of  this  alternative  modern  criticism  at  first  preferred 
the  earlier  solution,  and  dated  Joel  before  Amos.  So 
Credner  in  his  Commentary   in    1831,   and  following 

^  See  Vol.  I.     The  Assyria  of  "Zech."  x.  11  is  Syria.     See  below. 

-  The  two  exceptions,  Nahum  and  Habakkuk,  are  not  relevant  to 
this  question.  Their  dates  are  fixed  by  their  references  to  Assyria 
and  Babylon. 

'  See  Rob.  Smith,  art.  "Joel,"  Encyc.  Brit. 

*■  So  obvious  is  this  alternative  that  all  critics  may  be  said  to  grant 
it,  except  KOnig  (Einl.),  on  whose  reasons  for  placing  Joel  in  the  end 
of  the  seventh  century  see  below,  p.  386,  n.  5.  Kessner  (Das  Zeitalter 
der  Proph.Joel  (188S)  deems  the  date  unprovable. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  7,11 

him  Hitzig,  Bleek,  Ewald,  Delitzsch,  Keil,  Kuenen 
(up  to  1864)/  Pusey  and  others.  So,  too,  at  first 
some  Hving  critics  of  the  first  rank,  v/ho,  Hke  Kuenen, 
have  since  changed  their  opinion.  And  so,  even  still, 
Kirkpatrick  (on  the  whole).  Von  Orelli,  Robertson,^ 
Stanley  Leathes  and  Sinker.^  The  reasons  which 
these  scholars  have  given  for  the  early  date  of  Joel 
are  roughly  as  follows.''  His  book  occurs  among  the 
earliest  of  the  Twelve  :  while  it  is  recognised  that  the 
order  of  these  is  not  strictly  chronological,  it  is  alleged 
that  there  is  a  division  between  the  pre-exilic  and  post- 
exilic  prophets,  and  that  Joel  is  found  among  the  former. 
The  vagueness  of  his  representations  in  general,  and 
of  his  pictures  of  the  Day  of  Jehovah  in  particular,  is 
attributed  to  the  simplicity  of  the  earlier  religion  of 
Israel,  and  to  the  want  of  that  analysis  of  its  leading 
conceptions  which  was  the  work  of  later  prophets.^ 
His  horror  of  the  interruption  of  the  daily  offer- 
ings in  the  Temple,  caused  by  the  plague  of  locusts," 
is  ascribed  to  a  fear  which  pervaded  the  primitive 
ages  of  all  peoples.'  In  Joel's  attitude  towards  other 
nations,  whom  he  condemns  to  judgment,  Ewald  saw 
"  the  old  unsubdued  warlike  spirit  of  the  times  of 
Deborah  and  David."  The  prophet's  absorption  in  the 
ravages  of  the  locusts  is  held  to  reflect  the  feeling  of 
a  purely  agricultural  community,  such  as   Israel  was 

*  See  The  Religion  of  Israel ,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  86  f. 

"^  The  O.T.  and  its  Contents,  p.  105, 

'  Lex  Mosaica,  pp.  422,  450. 

^  See  especially  Ewald  on  Joel  in  his  Prophets  of  the  O.T,  and 
Kirkpatrick's  very  fair  argument  in  Doctrine  of  the  Prophets,  pp.  57  ff. 

^  On  Joel's  picture  of  the  Day  of  Jehovah  Ewald  says  :  "We  have 
it  here  in  its  first  simple  and  clear  form,  nor  has  it  become  a  subject 
of  ridicule  as  in  Amos," 

"  i.  9,  13,  16,  ii.  14.  ■'So  Ewald. 


378  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

before  the  eighth  century.  The  absence  of  the  name 
of  Assyria  from  the  book  is  assigned  to  the  same  un- 
wiHingness  to  give  the  name  as  we  see  in  Amos  and  the 
earHer  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  and  it  is  thought  by  some 
that,  though  not  named,  the  Assyrians  are  symbolised 
by  the  locusts.  The  absence  of  all  mention  of  the  Law 
is  also  held  by  some  to  prove  an  early  date  :  though 
other  critics,  who  believe  that  the  Levitical  legislation 
was  extant  in  Israel  from  the  earliest  times,  find  proof 
of  this  in  Joel's  insistence  upon  the  daily  offering.  The 
absence  of  all  mention  of  a  king  and  the  prominence 
given  to  the  priests  are  explained  by  assigning  the 
prophecy  to  the  minority  of  King  Joash  of  Judah,  when 
Jehoyada  the  priest  was  regent ;  ^  the  charge  against 
Egypt  and  Edom  of  spilling  innocent  blood  by  Shishak's 
invasion  of  Judah, ^  and  by  the  revolt  of  the  Edomites 
under  Jehoram  ;  ^  the  charge  against  the  Philistines  and 
Phoenicians  by  the  Chronicler's  account  of  Philistine 
raids  *  in  the  reign  of  Jehoram  of  Judah,  and  by  the 
oracles  of  Amos  against  both  nations  ;  ^  and  the  mention 
of  the  Vale  of  Jehoshaphat  by  that  king's  defeat  of 
Moab,  Ammon  and  Edom  in  the  Vale  of  Berakhah.^ 
These  allusions  being  recognised,  it  was  deduced  from 
them  that  the  parallels  between  Joel  and  Amos  were 
due  to  Amos  having  quoted  from  Joel.^ 


'  2  Kings  xi.  4-21. 

*  I  Kings  xiv.  25  f. :  cf.  Joel  iii,  i^b,  19. 
'  2  Kings  viii.  20-22  :  cf.  Joel  iii.  19. 

*  2  Chron.  xxi.  16,  17,  xxii.  I  :  cf.  Joel  iii.  4-6. 
'  Amos  i. :  cf.  Joel  iii.  4-6. 

'  2  Chron.  xx.,  especially  26  :  cf.  Joel  iii.  2. 

'  Joel  iii.  (Eng. ;  iv.  Heb.)  16;  Amos  i.  2.  For  a  list  of  the  various 
periods  to  which  Joel  has  been  assigned  by  supporters  of  this  early 
date  see  Kuenen,  §  68. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  379 

These  reasons  are  not  all  equally  cogent/  and  even 
the  strongest  of  them  do  not  prove  more  than  the 
possibility  of  an  early  date  for  Joel.^  Nor  do  they 
meet  every  historical  difficulty.  The  minority  of  Joash, 
upon  which  they  converge,  fell  at  a  time  when  Aram 
was  not  only  prominent  to  the  thoughts  of  Israel,  but 
had  already  been  felt  to  be  an  enemy  as  powerful 
as  the  PhiHstines  or  Edomites.  But  the  Book  of  Joel 
does  not  mention  Aram.  It  mentions  the  Greeks,^  and, 
although  we  have  no  right  to  say  that  such  a  notice 
was  impossible  in  Israel  in  the  ninth  century,  it  was 
not  only  improbable,  but  no  other  Hebrew  document 
from  before  the  Exile  speaks  of  Greece,  and  in  particular 
Amos  does  not  when  describing  the  Phoenicians  as 
slave-traders.*  The  argument  that  the  Book  of  Joel 
must  be  early  because  it  was  placed  among  the  first  six  of 
the  Twelve  Prophets  by  the  arrangers  of  the  Prophetic 
Canon,  who  could  not  have  forgotten  Joel's  date  had  he 
lived  after  450,  loses  all  force  from  the  fact  that  in  the 
same  group  of  pre-exilic  prophets  we  find  the  exilic 
Obadiah  and  the  post-exilic  Jonah,  both  of  them  in 
precedence  to  Micah. 

The  argument  for  the  early  date  of  Joel  is,  therefore, 
not  conclusive.  But  there  are  besides  serious  objections 
to  it,  which  make  for  the  other  solution  of  the  alter- 
native we  started  from,  and  lead  us  to  place  Joel  after 
the  establishment  of  the  Law  by  Ezra  and  Nehemiah 
in  444  B.C. 


^  The  reference  of  Egypt  in  iii.  19  to  Shishak's  invasion  appears 
particularly  weak. 

*  Cf.    Robertson,   O.   T.  and  its    Contents,   105,  and  Kirkpatrick's 
cautious,  though  convinced,  statement  of  the  reasons  for  an  early  date. 

3  iii.  6  (Heb.  iv.  6). 

*  Amos  i.  9. 


38o  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

A  post-exilic  date  was  first  proposed  by  Vatke,^  and 
then  defended  by  Hilgenfeld,^  and  by  Duhm  in  1875.^ 
From  this  time  the  theory  made  rapid  way,  winning 
over  many  who  had  previously  held  the  early  date  of 
Joel,  like  Oort,*  Kuenen,^  A.  B.  Davidson,®  Driver  and 
Cheyne,^  perhaps  also  Wellhausen,^  and  finding  accept- 
ance and  new  proofs  from  a  gradually  increasing 
majority  of  younger  critics,  Merx,^  Robertson  Smith,^® 
Stade,^^  Matthes  and  Scholz,^^  Holzinger,^^  Farrar," 
Kautzsch,^^  CornilV®  Wildeboer,"  G.  B.  Gray^^  and 
Nowack.-^®  The  reasons  which  have  led  to  this  formid- 
able change  of  opinion  in  favour  of  the  late  date  of  the 
Book  of  Joel  are  as  follows. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Exile  of  Judah  appears  in  it 
as  already  past.  This  is  proved,  not  by  the  ambiguous 
phrase,  when  I  shall  bring  again  the  captivity  of  Judah 


'  Bibl.  Theol.y  I.,  p.  462  ;  Einl.,  pp.  675  flf. 
^  Ztschr.  f.  wtssensch.  Theol.,  X.,  Heft  4. 
'  Theol.  der  Proph.^  pp.  275  ff. 

*  Theol.  Tijd.,  1876,  pp.  362  ff.  (not  seen). 

*  Onderz.,  §  68. 

^  Expositor,  1888,  Jan.— June,  pp.  198  fif. 

'  See  Cheyne,  Origin  of  Psalter,  xx. ;  Driver,  Introd.,  in  the  sixth 
edition  of  which,  1897,  he  supports  the  late  date  of  Joel  more  strongly 
than  in  the  first  edition,  1892. 

*  Wellhausen  allowed  the  theory  of  the  early  date  of  Joel  to  stand 
in  his  edition  of  Bleek's  Einleittmg,  but  adopts  the  late  date  in  his 
own  Kleine  Propheten. 

°  Die  Prophetic  des  Joels  u.  ihre  Ausleger,  1879. 
1"  Encyc.  Brit.,  art.  "Joel,"  1881. 
"  Gesch.,  II.  207. 

"  Theol.  Tijdschr.,  1885,  p.  151  ;  Contm.,  1885  (neither  seen). 
"  "  Sprachcharakter  u.  Abfassungszeit  des  B.  Joels  "  in  Z.A.T.W., 
1889,  pp.  89  ff. 
**  Minor  Prophets.  '^  Litteratur  des  A.  T. 

'*  Bibel.  '8  Expositor,  September  1893. 

"  Einleit  '"  Comm.,  1897. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  381 

and  Jerusalem ^^  but  by  the  plain  statement  that  the 
heathen  have  scattered  Israel  among  the  nations  and  divided 
their  land}  The  plunder  of  the  Temple  seems  also  to 
be  implied.^  Moreover,  no  great  world-power  is  pic- 
tured as  either  threatening  or  actually  persecuting  God's 
people ;  but  Israel's  active  enemies  and  enslavers  are 
represented  as  her  own  neighbours,  Edomites,  Philis- 
tines and  Phoenicians,  and  the  last  are  represented  as 
selling  Jewish  captives  to  the  Greeks.  All  this  suits, 
if  it  does  not  absolutely  prove,  the  Persian  age,  before 
the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  Ochus,  who  was  the  first  Persian 
king  to  treat  the  Jews  with  cruelty.'^  The  Greeks, 
Javan,  do  not  appear  in  any  Hebrew  writer  before  the 
Exile  ;  ^  the  form  in  which  their  name  is  given  by  Joel, 
B'ne  ha-Jevanim,  has  admittedly  a  late  sound  about  it,^ 
and  we  know  from  other  sources  that  it  was  in  the 
fifth  and  fourth  centuries  that  Syrian  slaves  were  in 
demand  in  Greece/  Similarly  with  the  internal  con- 
dition of   the  Jews  as  reflected    in   Joel.     No    king  is 

*  iv.  (Heb. ;  iii.  Eng.)  i.  For  this  may  only  mean  turn  again  the 
fortunes  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem. 

2  iv.  (Heb. ;  iii.  Eng.)  2.  The  supporters  of  a  pre-exilic  date 
either  passed  this  over  or  understood  it  of  incursions  by  the  heathen 
into  Israel's  territories  in  the  ninth  century.  It  is,  however,  too 
universal  to  suit  these.  ^  iv.  (Heb. ;  iii.  Eng.)  5. 

*  Kautzsch  dates  after  Artaxerxes  Ochus,  and  c.  350. 

*  Ezekiel  (xxvii.  13,  19)  is  the  first  to  give  the  name  Javan,  i.e. 
laPwJ',  or  Ionian  (earlier  writers  name  Egypt,  Edom,  Arabia  and 
Phoenicia  as  the  great  slave-markets:  Amos  i. ;  Isa.  xi.  11 ;  Deut. 
xxviii.  68)  ;  and  Greeks  are  also  mentioned  in  Isa.  Ixvi.  19  (a 
post-exilic  passage);  Zech,  ix.  13;  Dan.  viii.  21,  x.  20,  xi.  2; 
I  Chron.  i.  5,  7,  and  Gen.  x.  2.     See  below,  Chap.  XXXI. 

^  D'iVn  '•jn  instead  of  p""  ""J^,  just  as  the  Chronicler  gives  D^^"lp^  '•J3 
for  mp  "^11 :  see  Wildeboer,  p.  348,  and  Matthes,  quoted  by  Hol- 
zinger,  p.  94. 

'  Movers,  Ph'dn.  Alterthum.,  II.  i,  pp.  70  sqq.  :  which  reference  I 
owe  to  R,  Smith's  art.  in  the  Encyc.  Brit, 


382  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

mentioned  ;  but  the  priests  are  prominent,  and  the  elders 
are  introduced  at  least  once.^  It  is  an  agricultural 
calamity,  and  that  alone,  unmixed  with  any  political 
alarm,  which  is  the  omen  of  the  coming  Day  of  the 
Lord.  All  this  suits  the  state  of  Jerusalem  under  the 
Persians.  Take  again  the  religious  temper  and  emphasis 
of  the  book.  The  latter  is  laid,  as  we  have  seen,  very 
remarkably  upon  the  horror  of  the  interruption  by  the 
plague  of  locusts  of  the  daily  meal  and  drink  offerings, 
and  in  the  later  history  of  Israel  the  proofs  are  many 
of  the  exceeding  importance  with  which  the  regularity 
of  this  w^as  regarded.^  This,  says  Professor  A.  B. 
Davidson,  "  is  very  unlike  the  way  in  which  all  other 
prophets  down  to  Jeremiah  speak  of  the  sacrificial 
service."  The  priests,  too,  are  called  to  take  the  initia- 
tive ;  and  the  summons  to  a  solemn  and  formal  fast, 
without  any  notice  of  the  particular  sins  of  the  people 
or  exhortations  to  distinct  virtues,  contrasts  with  the 
attitude  to  fasts  of  the  earlier  prophets,  and  with  their 
insistence  upon  a  change  of  life  as  the  only  acceptable 
form  of  penitence.^  And  another  contrast  with  the 
earliest  prophets  is  seen  in  the  general  apocalyptic 
atmosphere  and  colouring  of  the  Book  of  Joel,  as  well 

*  With- these  might  be  taken  the  use  of  ?np  (ii.  1 6)  in  its  sense  of 
a  gathering  for  public  worship.  The  word  itself  was  old  in  Hebrew, 
but  as  time  went  on  it  came  more  and  more  to  mean  the  convocation 
of  the  nation  for  worship  or  deliberation.     Holzinger,  pp.  105  f. 

^  Cf.  Neh.  X.  33;  Dan.  viii.  11,  xi.  31,  xii.  II,  Also  Acts  xxvi.  7  : 
t6  5<jiheKd(t>v\ov  iifxCov  ev  iKxeveia  vOKia  Kai  rjixipav  Xarpevov.  Also  the 
passages  in  Jos.,  XIV.  Anf.  iv.  3,  xvi.  2,  in  which  Josephus  mentions 
the  horror  caused  by  the  interruption  of  the  daily  sacrifice  by  famine 
in  the  last  siege  of  Jerusalem,  and  adds  that  it  had  happened  in  no 
previous  siege  of  the  city. 

^  Cf.  Jer.  xiv.  12;  Isa.  Iviii.  6;  Zech.  vii.  5,  vi.  II,  19,  with 
Neh.  i.  4,  ix.  I ;  Ezra  viii.  21 ;  Jonah  iii.  5,  7  ;  Esther  iv.  3,  16,  ix.  31  ; 
Dan.  ix.  3. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  383 

as  in  some  of  the  particular  figures  in  which  this  is 
expressed,  and  which  are  derived  from  later  prophets 
like  Zephaniah  and  Ezekiel.^ 

These  evidences  for  a  late  date  are  supported,  on 
the  whole,  by  the  language  of  the  book.  Of  this  Merx 
furnishes  many  details,  and  by  a  careful  examination, 
which  makes  due  allowance  for  the  poetic  form  of  the 
book  and  for  possible  glosses,  Holzinger  has  shown 
that  there  are  symptoms  in  vocabulary,  grammar  and 
syntax  which  at  least  are  more  reconcilable  with  a  late 
than  with  an  early  date.^  There  are  a  number  of 
Aramaic  words,  of  Hebrew  words  used  in  the  sense 
in  which  they  are  used  by  Aramaic,  but  by  no  other 
Hebrew,  writers,  and  several  terms  and  constructions 
which  appear  only  in  the  later  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  or  very  seldom  in  the  early  ones."  It  is 
true  that  these  do  not  stand  in  a  large  proportion  to 
the  rest  of  Joel's  vocabulary  and  grammar,  which  is 
classic  and  suitable  to  an  early  period  of  the  literature ; 
but  this  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  large  use  which 
the  prophet  makes  of  the  very  words  of  earlier  writers. 

*  The  gathering  of  the  Gentiles  to  judgment,  Zeph.  iii.  8  (see 
above,  p.  69)  and  Ezek.  xxxviii.  22;  the  stream  issuing  from  the 
Temple  to  fill  the  Wady  ha-Shittim,  Ezek.  xlvii.  i  ff.,  cf.  Zech.  xiv.  8; 
the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit,  Ezek.  xxxix.  29, 

*  Z.A.T.W.,  i88g,  pp.  89-136.  Holzinger's  own  conclusion  is  stated 
more  emphatically  than  above. 

'  For  an  exhaustive  list  the  reader  must  be  referred  to  Holzinger's 
article  (cf.  Driver,  Introd.,  sixth  edition;  Joel  and  Amos,  p.  24; 
G.  B.  Gra}?^,  Expositor,  September  1893,  p.  212).  But  the  following 
(a  few  of  which  are  not  given  by  Holzinger)  are  sufficient  to  prove  the 
conclusion  come  to  above  :  i.  2,  iv.  4,  DX)  •  •  •  H — this  is  the  form  of 
the  disjunctive  interrogative  in  later  O.  T.  writings,  replacing  the 
earlier  DK  •  •  •  D.  J  i-  8,  *?X  only  here  in  O.  T.,  but  frequent  in  Aram. ; 
13,  y^OJ  in  Ni.  only  from  Jeremiah  onwards,  Qal  only  in  two 
passages  before  Jeremiah  and  in  a  number  after  him  ;  18,  nnJ{<J,  if 


384  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Take  this  large  use  into  account,  and  the  unmistakable 
Aramaisms  of  the  book  become  even  more  emphatic 
in  their  proof  of  a  late  date. 

The  literary  parallels  between  Joel  and  other  writers 
are  unusually  many  for  so  small  a  book.  They  number 
at  least  twenty  in  seventy-two  verses.  The  other 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  in  which  they  occur  are 
about  twelve.  Where  one  writer  has  parallels  with 
many,  we  do  not  necessarily  conclude  that  he  is  the 
borrower,  unless  we  find  that  some  of  the  phrases 
common  to  both  are  characteristic  of  the  other  writers, 
or  that,  in  his  text  of  them,  there  are  differences  from 
theirs  which  may  reasonably  be  reckoned  to  be  of 
a  later  origin.  But  that  both  of  these  conditions  are 
found  in  the  parallels  between  Joel  and  other  prophets 
has  been  shown  by  Prof.  Driver  and  Mr.  G.  B.  Gray. 
"  Several  of  the  parallels — either  in  their  entirety  or 
by  virtue  of  certain  words  which  they  contain — have 
their  affinities  solely  or  chiefly  in  the  later  writings. 
But  the  significance  [of  this]  is  increased  when  the 
very    difference    between    a    passage    in    Joel    and    its 


the  correct  reading,  occiirs  only  in  the  latest  O.  T.  writings,  the  Qal 
only  in  these  and  Aram. ;  ii.  2,  iv.  (Heb. ;  iii.  Eng.)  20,  IHI  Til  first 
in  Deut.  xxxii.  7,  and  then  exilic  and  post-exilic  frequently ;  8,  Vb^, 
a  late  word,  only  in  Job  xxxiii.  18,  xxxvi.  12,  2  Chron.  xxiii.  10, 
xxxii.  5,  Neh.  iii.  15,  iv.  ii,  17;  20,  PjlD,  end,  only  in  2  Chron.  xx.  16 
and  Eccles.,  Aram,  of  Daniel,  and  post  Bibl.  Aram,  and  Heb. ;  iv. 
(Heb. ;  iii.  Eng.)  4,  "py  "5^3,  cf.  2  Chron.  xx.  il  ;  10,  nO"l,  see  below 
on  this  verse;  II,  nnjn,  Aram.  ;  13,  7*^3,  in  Hebrew  to  cook  (cf. 
Ezek.  xxiv.  5),  and  in  other  forms  always  with  that  meaning  down  to 
the  Priestly  Writing  and  "  Zech,"  ix. — xiv.,  is  used  here  in  the  sense 
of  ripen,  which  is  frequent  in  Aram,,  but  does  not  occur  elsewhere 
in  O.  T.  Besides,  Joel  uses  for  the  first  personal  pronoun  ''JS — ii.  27 
{bis),  iv.  10,  17 — which  is  by  far  the  most  usual  form  with  later 
writers,  and  not  "'DJX,  preferred  by  pre-exilic  writers.  (See  below 
on  the  language  of  Jonah.) 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  385 

parallel  in  another  book  consists  in  a  word  or  phrase 
characteristic  of  the  later  centuries.  That  a  passage 
in  a  writer  of  the  ninth  century  should  differ  from  its 
parallel  in  a  subsequent  writer  by  the  presence  of  a 
word  elsewhere  confined  to  the  later  literature  would 
be  strange  ;  a  single  instance  would  not,  indeed,  be 
inexplicable  in  view  of  the  scantiness  of  extant  writings  ; 
but  every  additional  instance— though  itself  not  very 
convincing — renders  the  strangeness  greater."  And 
again,  ^'  the  variations  in  some  of  the  parallels  as  found 
in  Joel  have  other  common  peculiarities.  This  also 
finds  its  natural  explanation  in  the  fact  that  Joel  quotes  : 
for  that  the  same  author  even  when  quoting  from 
different  sources  should  quote  with  variations  of  the 
same  character  is  natural,  but  that  different  authors 
quoting  from  a  common  source  should  follow  the  same 
method  of  quotation  is  improbable."  ^  "  While  in  some 
of  the  parallels  a  comparison  discloses  indications  that 
the  phrase  in  Joel  is  probably  the  later,  in  other  cases, 
even  though  the  expression  may  in  itself  be  met  with 
earlier,  it  becomes  frequent  only  in  a  later  age,  and  the 
use  of  it  by  Joel  increases  the  presumption  that  he 
stands  by  the  side  of  the  later  writers."  ^ 

In  face  of  so  many  converging  lines  of  evidence,  we 
shall  not  wonder  that  there  should  have  come  about 
so  great  a  change  in  the  opinion  of  the  majority  of 
critics  on  the  date  of  Joel,  and  that  it  should  now  be 
assigned  by  them  to  a  post-exilic  date.  Some  place 
it  in  the  sixth  century  before  Christ,^  some  in  the  first 


1  G.  B.  Gray,  Expositor,  September  1893,  pp.  213  f.  For  the  above 
conclusions  ample  proof  is  given  in  Mr.  Gray's  detailed  examination 
of  the  parallels:  pp.  214  ff, 

*  Driver,  Joel  and  Amos,  p.  27. 

^  Scholz  and  Rosenzweig  (not  seen). 
VOL.  II.  25 


386  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

half  of  the  fifth  before  ''  Malachi "  and  Nehemiah/  but 
the  most  after  the  full  establishment  of  the  Law  by 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah  in  444  b.c.^  It  is  difficult,  perhaps 
impossible,  to  decide.  Nothing  certain  can  be  deduced 
from  the  mention  of  the  city  wall  in  chap.  ii.  9,  from 
which  Robertson  Smith  and  Cornill  infer  that  Nehe- 
miah's  walls  were  already  built.  Nor  can  we  be  sure  that 
Joel  quotes  the  phrase,  before  the  great  and  terrible  day 
of  Jehovah  come,  from  "  Malachi,"  ^  although  this  is  ren- 
dered probable  by  the  character  of  Joel's  other  parallels. 
But  the  absence  of  all  reference  to  the  prophets  as 
a  class,  the  promise  of  the  rigorous  exclusion  01 
foreigners  from  Jerusalem,*  the  condemnation  to  judg- 
ment of  all  the  heathen,  and  the  strong  apocalyptic 
character  of  the  book,  would  incline  us  to  place  it  after 
Ezra  rather  than  before.  How  far  after,  it  is  impossible 
to  say,  but  the  absence  of  feeling  against  Persia  re- 
quires a  date  before  the  cruelties  inflicted  by  Artaxerxes 
about  360.^ 

^  Hilgenfeld,  Duhm,  Oort.  Driver  puts  it  "  most  safely  shortly 
after  Haggai  and  Zechariah  i. — viii.,  c.  500  B.C." 

*  Vernes,  Robertson  Smith,  Kuenen,  Matthes,  Cornill,  Nowack,  etc. 

*  Joel  iii.  4  (Heb. ;  Eng.  ii.  31) ;  "Mai."  iv.  5. 

*  iii.  (Eng. ;  iv.  Heb.)  17. 

*  Perhaps  this  is  the  most  convenient  place  to  refer  to  KOnig's 
proposal  to  place  Joel  in  the  last  years  of  Josiah,  Some  of  his 
arguments  {e.g.  that  Joel  is  placed  among  the  first  of  the  Twelve)  we 
have  already  answered.  He  thinks  that  i.  17-20  suit  the  great 
drought  in  Josiah's  reign  (Jer.  xiv.  2-6),  that  the  name  given  to  the 
locusts,  ^JIDVn,  ii.  20,  is  due  to  Jeremiah's  enemy /row  the  north,  and 
that  the  phrases  return  with  all  your  heart,  ii.  12,  and  return  to  Jehovah 
your  God,  13,  imply  a  period  of  apostasy.  Nbne  of  these  conclusions 
is  necessary.  The  absence  of  reference  to  the  high  places  finds  an 
analogy  in  Isa.  i.  13;  the  HH^D  is  mentioned  in  Isa.  i.  13:  if  Amos 
viii.  5  testifies  to  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  and  Nahum  ii.  I  to  other 
festivals,  who  can  say  a  pre-exilic  prophet  would  not  be  interested  in 
the  meal   and   drink  offerings  ?      But   surely   no   pre-exiHc   prophet 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  387 


One  solution,  which  has  lately  been  offered  for  the 
problems  of  date  presented  by  the  Book  of  Joel,  deserves 
some  notice.  In  his  German  translation  of  Driver's 
Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament^  Rothstein  questions 
the  integrity  of  the  prophecy,  and  alleges  reasons  for 
dividing  it  into  two  sections.  Chaps,  i.  and  ii.  (Heb. ; 
i. — ii.  27  Eng.)  he  assigns  to  an  early  author,  writing 
in  the  minority  of  King  Joash,  but  chaps,  iii.  and  iv. 
(Heb.  ;  ii.  28 — iii.  Eng.)  to  a  date  after  the  Exile,  while 
ii.  20,  which,  it  will  be  remembered,  Robertson  Smith 
takes  as  a  gloss,  he  attributes  to  the  editor  who  has 
joined  the  two  sections  together.  His  reasons  are 
that  chaps,  i.  and  ii.  are  entirely  taken  up  with  the 
physical  plague  of  locusts,  and  no  troubles  from  heathen 
are  mentioned;  while  chaps,  iii.  and  iv.  say  nothing 
of  a  physical  plague,  but  the  evils  they  deplore  for 
Israel  are  entirely  political,  the  assaults  of  enemies. 
Now  it  is  quite  within  the  bounds  of  possibihty  that 
chaps,  iii.  and  iv.  are  from  another  hand  than  chaps,  i. 
and  ii.  :  we  have  nothing  to  disprove  that.  But,  on  the 
other   hand,  there   is  nothing  to   prove   it.      On   the 

would  have  so  emphasised  these  as  Joel  has  done.  Nor  is  Konig's 
explanation  of  iv.  2  as  of  the  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  invasion  of 
Judah  so  probable  as  that  which  refers  the  verse  to  the  Babylonian 
exile.  Nor  are  Konig's  objections  to  a  date  after  "  Malachi "  convincing. 
They  are  that  a  prophet  near  "Malachi's"  time  must  have  specified  as 
"  Malachi "  did  the  reasons  for  the  repentance  to  which  he  summoned 
the  people,  v/hile  Joel  gives  none,  but  is  quite  general  (ii.  I3rt).  But 
the  change  of  attitude  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  covenant  and 
Law  of  444.  "  Malachi  "  i,  1 1  speaks  of  the  Gentiles  worshipping 
Jehovah,  but  not  even  ip  Jonah  iii.  5  is  any  relation  of  the  Gentiles 
to  Jehovah  predicated.  Again,  the  greater  exclusiveness  of  Ezra  and 
his  Law  may  be  the  cause.  Joel,  it  is  true,  as  KCnig  says,  does  not 
mention  the  Law,  while  "Malachi"  does  (ii.  8,  etc.);  but  this  was  not 
necessary  if  the  people  had  accepted  it  in  444.  Professor  Ryle  {Canon 
ofO.T.,  106  n.)  leaves  the  question  of  Joel's  date  open. 
1  Pages  333  f.  n. 


388  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

contrary,  the  possibility  of  all  four  chapters  being  from 
the  same  hand  is  very  obvious.  Joel  mentions  no 
heathen  in  the  first  chapter,  because  he  is  engrossed 
with  the  plague  of  locusts.  But  when  this  has  passed, 
it  is  quite  natural  that  he  should  take  up  the  standing 
problem  of  Israel's  history — their  relation  to  heathen 
peoples.  There  is  no  discrepancy  between  the  two 
different  subjects,  nor  between  the  styles  in  which  they 
are  respectively  treated.  Rothstein's  arguments  for  an 
early  date  for  chaps,  i.  and  ii.  have  been  already 
answered,  and  when  we  come  to  the  exposition  of  them 
we  shall  find  still  stronger  reasons  for  assigning  them 
to  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ.  The 
assault  on  the  integrity  of  the  prophecy  may  therefore 
be  said  to  have  failed,  though  no  one  who  remembers 
the  composite  character  of  the  prophetical  books  can 
deny  that  the  question  is  still  open.^ 

2.    The   Interpretation   of   the   Book  :    Is   it 
Description,  Allegory  or  Apocalypse? 

Another  question  to  which  we  must  address  our- 
sdves  before  we  can  pass  to  the  exposition  of  Joel's 
prophecies  is  of  the  attitude  and  intention  of  the 
prophet.  Does  he  describe  or  predict?  Does  he 
give  history  or  allegory  ? 

Joel  starts  from  a  great  plague  of  locusts,  which  he 

'  Vernes,  Histoire  des  Ide'es  Messianiques  depiiis  Alexandre,  pp.  13  ff., 
had  already  asserted  that  chaps,  i.  and  ii.  must  be  by  a  different 
author  from  chaps,  iii.  and  iv,,  because  the  former  has  to  do  wholly 
with  the  writer's  present,  with  which  the  latter  has  no  connection 
whatever,  but  it  is  entirely  eschatological.  But  in  his  Melanges  de 
Crit  Relig.,  pp.  218  ff.,  Vernes  allows  that  his  arguments  are  not 
conclusive,  and  that  all  four  chapters  may  have  come  from  the  same 
hand. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  389 


describes  not  only  in  the  ravages  they  commit  upon 
the  land,  but  in  their  ominous  foreshadowing  of  the 
Day  of  the  Lord.  They  are  the  heralds  of  God's  near 
judgment  upon  the  nation.  Let  the  latter  repent 
instantly  with  a  day  of  fasting  and  prayer.  Per- 
adventure  Jehovah  will  relent,  and  spare  His  people. 
So  far  chap.  i.  2 — ii.  17.  Then  comes  a  break.  An 
uncertain  interval  appears  to  elapse ;  and  in  chap, 
ii.  18  we  are  told  that  Jehovah's  zeal  for  Israel  has 
been  stirred,  and  He  has  had  pity  on  His  folk.  Pro- 
mises follow,  first^  of  deliverance  from  the  plague  and 
of  restoration  of  the  harvests  it  has  consumed,  and 
second,  of  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  on  all  classes 
of  the  community:  chap.  ii.  17-32  (Eng.  ;  ii.  17 — iii. 
Heb.).  Chap.  iii.  (Eng. ;  iv.  Heb.)  gives  another  picture 
of  the  Day  of  Jehovah,  this  time  described  as  a 
judgment  upon  the  heathen  enemies  of  Israel.  They 
shall  be  brought  together,  condemned  judicially  by 
Him,  and  slain  by  His  hosts,  His  ''  supernatural "  hosts. 
Jerusalem  shall  be  freed  from  the  feet  of  strangers,  and 
the  fertility  of  the  land  restored. 

These  are  the  contents  of  the  book.  Do  they 
describe  an  actual  plague  of  locusts,  already  experi- 
enced by  the  people  ?  Or  do  they  predict  this  as  still 
to  come  ?  And  again,  are  the  locusts  which  they 
describe  real  locusts,  or  a  symbol  and  allegory  of  the 
human  foes  of  Israel  ?  To  these  two  questions,  which 
in  a  measure  cross  and  involve  each  other,  three 
kinds  of  answer  have  been  given. 

A  large  and  growing  majority  of  critics  of  all 
schools  ^  hold  that  Joel  starts,  like  other  prophets,  from 
the  facts  of  experience.     His  locusts,  though  described 

'  I.e.  Hitzig,  Vatke,  Ewald,  Robertson  Smith,  Kuenen,  Kirk- 
patrick,  Driver,  Davidson,  Nowack,  etc. 


390  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

with  poetic  hyperbole — for  are  they  not  the  vanguard 
of  the  awful  Day  of  God's  judgment  ? — are  real  locusts  ; 
their  plague  has  just  been  felt  by  his  contemporaries, 
whom  he  summons  to  repent,  and  to  whom,  when  they 
have  repented,  he  brings  promises  of  the  restoration 
of  their  ruined  harvests,  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit, 
and  judgment  upon  their  foes.  Prediction  is  there- 
fore found  only  in  the  second  half  of  the  book  (ii.  i8 
onwards) :  it  rests  upon  a  basis  of  narrative  and  exhorta- 
tion which  fills  the  first  half. 

But  a  number  of  other  critics  have  argued  (and 
with  great  force)  that  the  prophet's  language  about  the 
locusts  is  too  aggravated  and  too  ominous  to  be  limited 
to  the  natural  plague  which  these  insects  periodically 
inflicted  upon  Palestine.  Joel  (they  reason)  would 
hardly  have  connected  so  common  an  adversity  with 
so  singular  and  ultimate  a  crisis  as  the  Day  of  the 
Lord.  Under  the  figure  of  locusts  he  must  be 
describing  some  more  fateful  agency  of  God's  wrath 
upon  Israel.  More  than  one  trait  of  his  description 
appears  to  imply  a  human  army.  It  can  only  be  one 
or  other,  or  all,  of  those  heathen  powers  whom  at 
different  periods  God  raised  up  to  chastise  His 
delinquent  people  ;  and  this  opinion  is  held  to  be  sup- 
ported by  the  facts  that  chap.  ii.  20  speaks  of  them 
as  the  Northern  and  chap.  iii.  (Eng. ;  iv.  Heb.)  deals 
with  the  heathen.  The  locusts  of  chaps,  i.  and  ii. 
are  the  same  as  the  heathen  of  chap.  iii.  In  chaps. 
i.  and  ii.  they  are  described  as  threatening  Israel, 
but  on  condition  of  Israel  repenting  (chap.  ii.  i8flf.) 
the  Day  of  the  Lord  which  they  herald  shall  be  their 
destruction  and  not  Israel's  (chap,  iii.).^ 

>  This   allegorical   interpretation   was   a   favourite   one   with    the 
early  Christian  Fathers  :  cf.  Jerome, 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  391 

The  supporters  of  this  allegorical  interpretation  of 
Joel  are,  however,  divided  among  themselves  as  to 
whether  the  heathen  powers  symbolised  by  the  locusts 
are  described  as  having  already  afQicted  Israel  or  are 
predicted  as  still  to  come.  Hilgenfeld,^  for  instance, 
says  that  the  prophet  in  chaps,  i.  and  ii.  speaks  of 
their  ravages  as  already  past.  To  him  their  fourfold 
plague  described  in  chap.  i.  4  symbolises  four  Persian 
assaults  upon  Palestine,  after  the  last  of  which  in 
358  the  prophecy  must  therefore  have  been  written.^ 
Others  read  them  as  still  to  come.  In  our  own 
country^  Pusey  has  been  the  strongest  supporter  of 
this  theory.^  To  him  the  whole  book,  written  before 
Amos,  is  prediction.  "  It  extends  from  the  prophet's 
own  day  to  the  end  of  time."  Joel  calls  the  scourge 
the  Northern  :  he  directs  the  priests  to  pray  for  its 
removal,  that  the  heathen  may  not  rule  over  God's 
heritage ;  ^  he  describes  the  agent  as  a  responsible 
one;^  his  imagery  goes  far  beyond  the  effects  of 
locusts,  and  threatens  drought,  fire  and  plague,^  the 
assault  of  cities  and  the  terrifying  of  peoples.'^  The 
scourge  is  to  be  destroyed  in  a  way  physically  in- 
applicable to  locusts ;  ^  and  the  promises  of  its  removal 
include  the  remedy  of  ravages  which  mere  locusts 
could  not  inflict :  the  captivity  of  Judah  is  to  be 
turned,  and  the  land  recovered   from  foreigners  who 

'  Zeitschr.  fur  wissensch.  Theologie,  i860,  pp.  412  ff. 

^  Cambyses  525,  Xerxes  484,  Artaxerxes  Ochus  460  and  458. 

^  In  Germany,  among  other  representatives  of  this  opinion,  are 
Bertholdt  {Einl.)  and  Hengstenberg  {Christol,  III.  352  ff.),  the  latter 
of  whom  saw  in  the  four  kinds  of  locusts  the  Assyrian-Babylonian, 
the  Persian,  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  tyrants  of  Israel. 

*  ii.  17.  ^  i.  19,  20.  8  ii.  20. 

^  ii.  20.  '  Plur.     ii.  6. 


392  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

are  to  be  banished  from  it.^  Pusey  thus  reckons  as 
future  the  relenting  of  God,  consequent  upon  the 
people's  penitence  :  chap.  ii.  i8ff.  The  past  tenses  in 
which  it  is  related,  he  takes  as  instances  of  the  well- 
known  prophetic  perfect,  according  to  which  the 
prophets  express  their  assurance  of  things  to  come 
by  describing  them  as  if  they  had  already  happened. 

This  is  undoubtedly  a  strong  case  for  the  predictive 
and  allegorical  character  of  the  Book  of  Joel ;  but  a 
little  consideration  will  show  us  that  the  facts  on  which 
it  is  grounded  are  capable  of  a  different  explanation 
than  that  which  it  assumes,  and  that  Pusey  has  over- 
looked a  number  of  other  facts  which  force  us  to  a 
literal  interpretation  of  the  locusts  as  a  plague  already 
past,  even  though  we  feel  they  are  described  in  the 
language  of  poetical  hyperbole. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  P^isey's  theory  implies  that 
the  prophecy  is  addressed  to  a  future  generation,  who 
shall  be  alive  when  the  predicted  invasions  of  heathen 
come  upon  the  land.  Whereas  Joel  obviously  ad- 
dresses his  own  contemporaries.  The  prophet  and 
his  hearers  are  one.  Before  our  eyes,  he  says,  the  food 
has  been  cut  off?  As  obviously,  he  speaks  of  the  plague 
of  locusts  as  of  something  that  has  just  happened. 
His  hearers  can  compare  its  effects  with  past  disasters, 
which  it  has  far  exceeded ;  ^  and  it  is  their  duty  to  hand 
down  the  story  of  it  to  future  generations.'^  Again,  his 
description  is  that  of  a  physical,  not  of  a  political,  plague. 
Fields  and  gardens,  vines  and  figs,  are  devastated  by 
being  stripped  and  gnawed.  Drought  accompanies  the 
locusts,  the  seed  shrivels  beneath  the  clods,  the  trees 
languish,  the  cattle  pant  for  want  of  water.^     These  are 

•  iii.  (Heb.  iv.)  I  f.,  17.         ^  i.  2  f.  M.  17  ff. 

2  J.  16.  "  i.  ^ 


TH^  BOOK  OF  JOEL  393 

not  the  trail  which  an  invading  army  leave  behind  them. 
In  support  of  his  theory  that  human  hosts  are  meant, 
Pusey  points  to  the  verses  which  bid  the  people  pray 
that  the  heathen  rule  not  over  them,  and  which  describe 
the  invaders  as  attacking  cities.^  But  the  former 
phrase  may  be  rendered  with  equal  propriety,  that  the 
heathen  make  not  satirical  songs  about  them ;  ^  and  as 
to  the  latter,  not  only  do  locusts  invade  towns  exactly 
as  Joel  describes,  but  his  words  that  the  invader  steals 
into  houses  like  a  thief  are  far  more  applicable  to  the 
insidious  entrance  of  locusts  than  to  the  bold  and  noisy 
assault  of  a  storming  party.  Moreover  Pusey  and  the 
other  allegorical  interpreters  of  the  book  overlook  the 
fact  that  Joel  never  so  much  as  hints  at  the  invariable 
effects  of  a  human  invasion,  massacre  and  plunder. 
He  describes  no  slaying  and  no  looting  ;  but  when  he 
comes  to  the  promise  that  Jehovah  will  restore  the 
losses  which  have  been  sustained  by  His  people,  he 
defines  them  as  the  years  which  His  army  has  eaten^ 
But  all  this  proof  is  clenched  by  the  fact  that  Joel  com- 
pares the  locusts  to  actual  soldiers.*  They  are  like 
horsemen,  the  sound  of  them  is  like  chariots,  they  run 
like  horses,  and  like  men  of  war  they  leap  upon  the 
wall.  Joel  could  never  have  compared  a  real  army  to 
itself! 

The  allegorical  interpretation  is  therefore  untenable. 
But  some  critics,  while  admitting  this,  are  yet  not  disposed 
to  take  the  first  part  of  the  book  for  narrative.  They 
adrnit  that  the  prophet  means  a  plague  of  locusts,  but 
they  deny  that  he  is  speaking  of  a  plague  already  past, 
and  hold  that  his  locusts  are  still  to  come,  that  they  are 
as  much  a  part  of  the  future  as  the  pouring  out  of  the 

•  ii.  17,  ii.  9  ff.         3  ^   ^   Davidson,  Expos.,  1888,  pp.  200  f. 
-  DU  ^^yh  '  ii.  4  ff. 


394  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Spirit  ^  and  the  judgment  of  the  heathen  in  the  Valley 
of  Jehoshaphat.^  All  alike,  they  are  signs  or  accom- 
paniments of  the  Day  of  Jehovah,  and  that  Day  has 
still  to  break.  The  prophet's  scenery  is  apocalyptic  ; 
the  locusts  are  "  eschatological  locusts,"  not  historical 
ones.  This  interpretation  of  Joel  has  been  elaborated 
by  Dr.  Adalbert  Merx,  and  the  following  is  a  summary 
of  his  opinions.^ 

After  examining  the  book  along  all  the  lines  of  exposition  which 
have  been  proposed,  Merx  finds  himself  unable  to  trace  any  plan  or 
even  sign  of  a  plan ;  and  his  only  escape  from  perplexity  is  the  beliet 
that  no  plan  can  ever  have  been  meant  by  the  author.  Joel  weaves 
in  one  past,  present  and  future,  paints  situations  only  to  blot  them 
out  and  put  others  in  their  place,  starts  many  processes  but  develops 
none.  His  book  shows  no  insight  into  God's  plan  with  Israel,  but  is 
purely  external;  the  bearing  and  the  end  of  it  is  the  material  V 
prosperity  of  the  little  land  of  Judah.  From  this  Merx  concludes 
that  the  book  is  not  an  original  v^^ork,  but  a  mere  summary  ot 
passages  from  previous  prophets,  that  with  a  few  reflections  of  the  life 
of  the  Jews  after  the  Return  lead  us  to  assign  it  to  that  period  of 
literary  culture  which  Nehemiah  inaugurated  by  the  collection  of 
national  writings  and  which  was  favoured  by  the  cessation  of  all  politi- 
cal disturbance.  Joel  gathered  up  the  pictures  of  the  Messianic  age 
in  the  older  prophets,  and  welded  them  together  in  one  long  prayer 
by  the  fervid  belief  that  that  age  was  near.  But  while  the  older 
prophets  spoke  upon  the  ground  of  actual  fact  and  rose  from  this  to  a 
majestic  picture  of  the  last  punishment,  the  still  life  of  Joel's  time  had 
nothing  such  to  offer  him  and  he  had  to  seek  another  basis  for  his 
prophetic  flight.  It  is  probable  that  he  sought  this  in  the  relation  ox 
Type  and  Antitype.  The  Antitype  he  found  in  the  liberation  from 
Egypt,  the  darkness  and  the  locusts  of  which  he  transferred  to  his 
canvas  from  Exodus  x.  4-6.  The  locusts,  therefore,  are  neither 
real  nor  symbolic,  but  ideal.  This  is  the  method  of  the  Midrash  and 
Haggada  in  Jewish  literature,  which  constantly  placed  over  against 
each  other  the  deliverance  from  Egypt  and  the  last  judgment.     It  is 

'  Eng.  ii.  28  ff.,  Heb.  iii. 

-  Eng.  iii.,  Heb.  iv. 

^  Die  Prophetic  des  Joel  it.  ihre  Ausleger,  1879.  The  following 
summary  and  criticism  of  Merx's  views  I  take  from  an  (unpublished) 
review  of  his  work  which  I  wrote  in  1881. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  395 

a  method  that  is  already  found  in  such  portions  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  Ezekiel  xxxvii,  and  Psalm  Ixxviii.  Joel's  locusts  are  borrowed  from 
the  Egyptian  plagues,  but  arc  presented  as  the  signs  of  the  Last  Day. 
They  will  bring  it  near  to  Israel  by  famine,  drought  and  the  in- 
terruption of  worship  described  in  chap,  i.  Chap,  ii.,  which  Mcrx 
keeps  distinct  from  chap,  i.,  is  based  on  a  study  of  Ezekiel,  from 
whom  Joel  has  borrowed,  among  other  things,  the  expressions  the 
garden  of  Eden  and  the  Northerner.  The  two  verses  generally  held  to 
be  historic,  18  and  19,  Merx  takes  to  be  the  continuation  of  the 
prayer  of  the  priests,  pointing  the  verbs  so  as  to  turn  them  from 
perfects  into  futures.^  The  rest  of  the  book,  Merx  strives  to  show,  is 
pieced  together  from  many  prophets,  chiefly  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel,  but 
without  the  tender  spiritual  feeling  of  the  one,  or  the  colossal 
magnificence  of  the  other.  Special  nations  are  mentioned,  but  in 
this  portion  of  the  work  we  have  to  do  not  with  events  already  past, 
but  with  general  views,  and  these  not  original,  but  conditioned  by  the 
expressions  of  earlier  writers.  There  is  no  history  in  the  book  :  it  is 
all  ideal,  mystical,  apocalyptic.  That  is  to  say,  according  to  Merx, 
there  is  no  real  prophet  or  prophetic  fire,  only  an  old  man  warming 
his  feeble  hands  over  a  few  embers  that  he  has  scraped  together  from 
the  ashes  of  ancient  fires,  now  nearly  wholly  dead. 

Merx  has  traced  Joel's  relations  to  other  prophets,  and  reflection 
of  a  late  date  in  Israel's  history,  with  care  and  ingenuity ;  but  his 
treatment  of  the  text  and  exegesis  of  the  prophet's  meaning  are 
alike  forced  and  fanciful.  In  face  of  the  support  which  the  Massoretic 
reading  of  the  hinge  of  the  book,  chap.  ii.  i"8  ff.,  receives  from  the 
ancient  versions,  and  of  its  inherent  probability  and  harmony  with 
the  context,  Merx's  textual  emendation  is  unnecessary,  besides  being 
in  itself  unnatural.-  While  the  very  same  objections  which  we  have 
already  found  valid  against  the  allegorical  interpretation  equally 
dispose  of  this  mystical  one.  Merx  outrages  the  evident  features  of 
the  book  almost  as  much  as  Hengstenberg  and  Pusey  have  done. 
He  has  lifted  out  of  time  altogether  that  which  plainly  purports  to 
be  historical.  His  literary  criticism  is  as  unsound  as  his  textual.  It 
is  only  by  ignoring  the  beautiful  poetry  of  chap.  i.  that  he  trans- 
plants it  to  the  future.  Joel's  figures  are  too  vivid,  too  actual,  to  be 
predictive  or  mystical.     And  the  whole  interpretation  wrecks  itself  in 


1  For  N3i5^5  etc.  he  reads  Nll.i?'''!  etc. 

^  "  The  proposal  of  Merx,  to  change  the  pointing  so  as  to  transform 
the  perfects  into  futures, ...  is  an  exegetical  monstrosity." — Robertson 
Smith,  art.  "Joel,"  Encyc.  Brit, 


396  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  same  verse  as  the  allegorical,  the  verse,  viz.,  in  which  Joel  plainly 
speaks  of  himself  as  having  suffered  with  his  hearers  the  plague  he 
describes.* 

We  may,  therefore,  with  confidence  conclude  that 
the  allegorical  and  mystical  interpretations  of  Joel  are 
impossible ;  and  that  the  only  reasonable  view  of  our 
prophet  is  that  which  regards  him  as  calling,  in  chap, 
i.  2 — ii.  17,  upon  his  contemporaries  to  repent  in  face 
of  a  plague  of  locusts,  so  unusually  severe  that  he  has 
felt  it  to  be  ominous  of  even  the  Day  of  the  Lord  ;  and 
in  the  rest  of  his  book,  as  promising  material,  political 
and  spiritual  triumphs  to  Israel  in  consequence  of  their 
repentance,  either  already  consummated,  or  anticipated 
by  the  prophet  as  certain. 

It  is  true  that  the  account  of  the  locusts  appears  to 
bear  features  which  conflict  with  the  Hteral  interpreta- 
tion. Some  of  these,  however,  vanish  upon  a  fuller 
knowledge  of  the  awful  degree  which  such  a  plague 
has  been  testified  to  reach  by  competent  observers 
within  our  own  era.^  Those  that  remain  may  be 
attributed  partly  to  the  poetic  hyperbole  of  Joel's  style, 
and  partly  to  the  fact  that  he  sees  in  the  plague  far 
more  than  itself  The  locusts  are  signs  of  the  Day  of 
Jehovah.  Joel  treats  them  as  w^e  found  Zephaniah 
treating  the  Scythian  hordes  of  his  day.  They  are  as 
real  as  the  latter,  but  on  them  as  on  the  latter  the 
lurid  glare  of  Apocalypse  has  fallen,  magnifying  them 
and  investing  them  with  that  air  of  ominousness  which 
is  the  sole  justification  of  the  allegorical  and  mystic 
interpretation  of  their  appearance. 

»  i.  16. 

^  Even  the  comparison  of  the  ravages  of  the  locusts  to  burning  by 
fire.  But  probably  also  Joel  means  that  they  were  accompanied  by 
drought  and  forest  fires.     See  below. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOEL  397 

To  the  same  sense  of  their  office  as  heralds  of  the 
last  day,  we  owe  the  description  of  the  locusts  as  the 
Northerner}  The  North  is  not  the  quarter  from  which 
locusts  usually  reach  Palestine,  nor  is  there  any  reason 
to  suppose  that  by  naming  the  North  Joel  meant  only 
to  emphasise  the  unusual  character  of  these  swarms. 
Rather  he  takes  a  name  employed  in  Israel  since 
Jeremiah's  time  to  express  the  instruments  of  Jehovah's 
wrath  in  the  day  of  His  judgment  of  Israel.  The  name 
is  typical  of  Doom,  and  therefore  Joel  applies  it  to  his 
fateful  locusts. 

3.  State  of  the  Text  and  the  Style  of  the  Book. 

Joel's  style  is  fluent  and  clear,  both  when  he  is 
describing  the  locusts,  in  which  part  of  his  book  he 
is  most  original,  and  when  he  is  predicting,  in  apoca- 
lyptic language  largely  borrowed  from  earlier  prophets, 
the  Day  of  Jehovah.  To  the  ease  of  understanding 
him  we  may  attribute  the  sound  state  of  the  text 
and  its  freedom  from  glosses.  In  this,  like  most  of 
the  books  of  the  post-exilic  prophets,  especially  the 
Books  of  Haggai,  ''  Malachi "  and  Jonah,  Joel's  book 
contrasts  very  favourably  with  those  of  the  older 
prophets ;  and  that  also,  to  some  degree,  is  proof  of 
the  lateness  of  his  date.  The  Greek  translators  have, 
on  the  whole,  understood  Joel  easily  and  with  little  error. 
In  their  version  there  are  the  usual  differences  of 
grammatical  construction,  especially  in  the  pronominal 
suffixes  and  verbs,  and  of  punctuation ;  but  very  few 
bits  of  expansion  and  no  real  additions.  These  are  all 
noted  in  the  translation  below. 


li.  20. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 

THE  LOCUSTS  AND   THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD 
Joel  i. — ii.  17 

JOEL,  as  we  have  seen,  found  the  motive  of  his 
prophecy  in  a  recent  plague  of  locusts,  the  appear- 
ance of  which  and  the  havoc  they  worked  are 
described  by  him  in  full  detail.  Writing  not  only  as 
a  poet  but  as  a  seer,  who  reads  in  the  locusts  signs  of 
the  great  Day  of  the  Lord,  Joel  has  necessarily  put 
into  his  picture  several  features  which  carry  the 
imagination  beyond  the  limits  of  experience.  And  yet, 
if  we  ourselves  had  lived  through  such  a  plague,  we 
should  be  able  to  recognise  how  little  license  the  poet 
has  taken,  and  that  the  seer,  so  far  from  unduly  mixing 
with  his  facts  the  colours  of  Apocalypse,  must  have 
experienced  in  the  terrible  plague  itself  enough  to  pro- 
voke all  the  religious  and  monitory  use  which  he  makes 
of  it. 

The  present  writer  has  seen  but  one  swarm  of  locusts, 
in  which,  though  it  was  small  and  soon  swept  away  by 
the  wind,  he  felt  not  only  many  of  the  features  that 
Joel  describes,  but  even  some  degree  of  that  singular 
helplessness  before  a  calamity  of  portent  far  beyond 
itself,  something  of  that  supernatural  edge  and  accent, 
which,  by  the  confession  of  so  many  observers,  char- 
acterise   the    locust-plague  and  the  earthquake  above 

398 


Joeli.-ii.  17]   LOCUSTS  AND  THt  DAY  OF  THE  LORD     399 

all  other  physical  disasters.  One  summer  afternoon, 
upon  the  plain  of  Hauran,  a  long  bank  of  mist  grew 
rapidly  from  the  western  horizon.  The  day  was  dull, 
and  as  the  mist  rose  athwart  the  sunbeams,  struggling 
through  clouds,  it  gleamed  cold  and  white,  like  the 
front  of  a  distant  snow-storm.  When  it  came  near, 
it  seemed  to  be  more  than  a  mile  broad,  and  was  dense 
enough  to  turn  the  atmosphere  raw  and  dirty,  with  a 
chill  as  of  a  summer  sea-fog,  only  that  this  was  not 
due  to  any  fall  in  the  temperature.  Nor  was  there 
the  silence  of  a  mist.  We  were  enveloped  by  a  noise, 
less  like  the  whirring  of  wings  than  the  rattle  of  hail  or 
the  crackling  of  bush  on  fire.  Myriads  upon  myriads 
of  locusts  were  about  us,  covering  the  ground,  and 
shutting  out  the  view  in  all  directions.  Though  they 
drifted  before  the  wind,  there  was  no  confusion  in  their 
ranks.  They  sailed  in  unbroken  lines,  sometimes 
straight,  sometimes  wavy ;  and  when  they  passed 
pushing  through  our  caravan,  they  left  almost  no 
stragglers,  except  from  the  last  battalion,  and  only  the 
few  dead  which  we  had  caught  in  our  hands.  After 
several  minutes  they  were  again  but  a  lustre  on  the  air, 
and  so  melted  away  into  some  heavy  clouds  in  the  east. 
Modern  travellers  furnish  us  with  terrible  impressions 
of  the  innumerable  multitudes  of  a  locust-plague,  the 
succession  of  their  swarms  through  days  and  weeks, 
and  the  utter  desolation  they  leave  behind  them. 
Mr.  Doughty  writes  :  ^  ''  There  hopped  before  our  feet 
a  minute  brood  of  second  locusts,  of  a  leaden  colour, 
with  budding  wings  like  the  spring  leaves,  and  born  of 
those  gay  swarms  which  a  few  weeks  before  had  passed 
over  and  despoiled  the  desert.     After  forty  days  these 

^  Arabia  Deserta,  p.  307, 


400  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

also  would  fly  as  a  pestilence,  yet  more  hungry  than 
the  former,  and  fill  the  atmosphere."  And  later  :  **  The 
clouds  of  the  second  locust  brood  which  the  Aarab  call 
'Am'dan,  pillars,  flew  over  us  for  some  days,  invaded 
the  booths  and  for  blind  hunger  even  bit  our  shins." ^ 
It  was  *'  a  storm  of  rusthng  wings."  ^  "  This  year  was 
remembered  for  the  locust  swarms  and  great  summer 
heat."^  A  traveller  in  South  Africa^  says  :  **  For  the 
space  of  ten  miles  on  each  side  of  the  Sea-Cow  river 
and  eighty  or  ninety  miles  in  length,  an  area  of  sixteen 
or  eighteen  hundred  square  miles,  the  whole  surface 
might  literally  be  said  to  be  covered  with  them."  In 
his  recently  published  book  on  South  Africa,  Mr.  Bryce 
writes : — ^ 

**  It  is  a  strange  sight,  beautiful  if  you  can  forget 
the  destruction  it  brings  with  it.  The  whole  air,  to 
twelve  or  even  eighteen  feet  above  the  ground,  is  filled 
with  the  insects,  reddish  brown  in  body,  with  bright, 
gauzy  wings.  When  the  sun's  rays  catch  them  it  is 
like  the  sea  sparkling  with  light.  When  you  see  them 
against  a  cloud  they  are  like  the  dense  flakes  of  a 
driving  snow-storm.  You  feel  as  if  you  had  never 
before  realised  immensity  in  number.  Vast  crowds  of 
men  gathered  at  a  festival,  countless  tree-tops  rising 
along  the  slope  of  a  forest  ridge,  the  chimneys  of 
London  houses  from  the  top  of  St.  Paul's — all  are  as 
nothing  to  the  myriads  of  insects  that  blot  out  the  sun 
above  and  cover  the  ground  beneath  and  fill  the  air 
whichever  way  one  looks.  The  breeze  carries  them 
swiftly  past,  but  they  come  on  in  fresh  clouds,  a  host 
of  which  there   is   no   end,  each  of  them  a  harmless 

'  Arabia  Deserta,  p.  335.  ^  Id.,  396.  «  Id.,  335. 

*  Barrow,  South  Africa,  p.  257,  quoted  by  Pusey. 

^  Impressions  of  South  Africa,  by  James  Bryce  :  Macmillans,  1897. 


Joeli.-ii.  17]   LOCUSTS  AND  THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD     401 

creature  which  you  can  catch  and  crush  in  your  hand, 
but  appalHng  in  their  power  of  collective  devastation." 

And  take  three  testimonies  from  Syria  :  '*  The  quantity 
of  these  insects  is  a  thing  incredible  to  any  one  who 
has  not  seen  it  himself;  the  ground  is  covered  by  them 
for  several  leagues."^  ''  The  whole  face  of  the  mountain  ^ 
was  black  with  them.  On  they  came  like  a  living 
deluge.  We  dug  trenches  and  kindled  fires,  and 
beat  and  burnt  to  death  heaps  upon  heaps,  but 
the  effort  was  utterly  useless.  They  rolled  up  the 
mountain-side,  and  poured  over  rocks,  walls,  ditches 
and  hedges,  those  behind  covering  up  and  passing  over 
the  masses  already  killed.  For  some  days  they  con- 
tinued to  pass.  The  noise  made  by  them  in  marching 
and  foraging  was  like  that  of  a  heavy  shower  falling 
upon  a  distant  forest."^  "The  roads  were  covered  with 
them,  all  marching  and  in  regular  lines,  like  armies  of 
soldiers,  with  their  leaders  in  front ;  and  all  the  op- 
position of  man  to  resist  their  progress  was  in  vain." 
Having  consumed  the  plantations  in  the  country,  they 
entered  the  towns  and  villages.  ''  When  they  ap- 
proached our  garden  all  the  farm  servants  were  em- 
ployed to  keep  them  off,  but  to  no  avail ;  though  our 
men  broke  their  ranks  for  a  moment,  no  sooner  had 
they  passed  the  men,  than  they  closed  again,  and 
marched  forward  through  hedges  and  ditches  as  before. 
Our  garden  finished,  they  continued  their  march  toward 
the  town,  devastating  one  garden  after  another.  They 
have  also  penetrated  into  most  of  our  rooms  :  whatever 
one  is  doing  one  hears  their  noise  from  without,  like 

'  Volney,  Voyage  en  Syrie,  I.  277,  quoted  by  Pusey. 
^  Lebanon. 

^  Abridged  from  Thomson's  The  Land  and  the  Book,  ed.  1877, 
Northern  Palestine,  pp.  416  if. 

VOL.  II,  26 


402  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  noise  of  armed  hosts,  or  the  running  of  many 
waters.  When  in  an  erect  position  their  appearance 
at  a  Httle  distance  is  Hke  that  of  a  well-armed 
horseman."  ^ 

Locusts  are  notoriously  adapted  for  a  plague,  "  since 
to  strength  incredible  for  so  small  a  creature,  they  add 
saw-like  teeth,  admirably  calculated  to  eat  up  all  the 
herbs  in  the  land."^  They  are  the  incarnation  of 
hunger.  No  voracity  is  like  theirs,  the  voracity  of 
little  creatures,  whose  milHon  separate  appetites  nothing 
is  too  minute  to  escape.  They  devour  first  grass  and 
leaves,  fruit  and  foliage,  everything  that  is  green  and 
juicy.  Then  they  attack  the  young  branches  of  trees, 
and  then  the  hard  bark  of  the  trunks.^  "After  eating 
up  the  corn,  they  fell  upon  the  vines,  the  pulse,  the 
willows,  and  even  the  hemp,  notwithstanding  its  great 
bitterness."  *  '*  The  bark  of  figs,  pomegranates  and 
oranges,  bitter,  hard  and  corrosive,  escaped  not  their 
voracity."  ^  "  They  are  particularly  injurious  to  the  palm- 
trees  ;  these  they  strip  of  every  leaf  and  green  particle, 
the  trees  remaining  like  skeletons  with  bare  branches."  ^ 
"  For  eighty  or  ninety  miles  the}^  devoured  every  green 
herb  and  every  blade  of  grass."  ^  "  The  gardens  out- 
side Jaffa  are  now  completely  stripped,  even  the  bark 


^  From  Driver's  abridgment  {Joel  and  Amos,  p.  90)  of  an  account 
in  the  Jojtni.  of  Sacred  Lit.,  October  1865,  pp.  235  f. 

2  Morier,  A  Second  Journey  through  Persia,  p.  99,  quoted  byPusey, 
from  whose  notes  and  Driver's  excursus  upon  locusts  in  Joel  and 
Amos  the  following  quotations  have  been  borrowed. 

^  Shaw's  Travels  in  Barbary,  1738,  pp.  236-8;  Jackson's  Travels 
to  Morocco. 

*  Adansson,  Voyage  au  Senegal,  p.  88. 

5  Chenier,  Recherches  Historiques  sur  Ics  Matires,  III.,  p.  496. 

«  Burckhardt,  Notes,  II.  90. 

'  Barrow,  South  Africa,  p.  257. 


Joeli.-ii.  17]     LOCUSTS  AND  THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD    403 

of  the  young  trees  having  been  devoured,  and  look  Hke 
a  birch-tree  forest  in  winter."  ^  ^'  The  bushes  were 
eaten  quite  bare,  though  the  animals  could  not  have 
been  long  on  the  spot.  They  sat  by  hundreds  on  a 
bush  gnawing  the  rind  and  the  woody  fibres."  ^ 
"  Bamboo  groves  have  been  stripped  of  their  leaves  and 
left  standing  like  saplings  after  a  rapid  bush  fire,  and 
grass  has  been  devoured  so  that  the  bare  ground  appeared 
as  if  burned."  ^  ''  The  country  did  not  seem  to  be  burnt, 
but  to  be  much  covered  with  snow  through  the  white- 
ness of  the  trees  and  the  dryness  of  the  herbs."  ^  The 
fields  finished,  they  invade  towns  and  houses,  in  search 
of  stores.  Victual  of  all  kinds,  hay,  straw,  and  even 
linen  and  woollen  clothes  and  leather  bottles,  they 
consume  or  tear  in  pieces.^  They  flood  through  the 
open,  unglazed  windows  and  lattices :  nothing  can 
keep  them  out. 

These  extracts  prove  to  us  what  little  need  Joel  had 
of  hyperbole  in  order  to  read  his  locusts  as  signs  of  the 
Day  of  Jehovah ;  especially  if  we  keep  in  mind  that 
locusts  are  worst  in  very  hot  summers,  and  often 
accompany  an  absolute  drought  along  with  its  conse- 
quence of  prairie  and  forest  fires.  Some  have  thought 
that,  in  introducing  the  effects  of  fire,  Joel  only  means 
to  paint  the  burnt  look  of  a  land  after  locusts  have 
ravaged  it.  But  locusts  do  not  drink  up  the  streams, 
nor  cause  the  seed  to  shrivel  in  the  earth.®  By  these 
the  prophet  must  mean  drought,  and  by  the  flame  that 
has  burned  all  the  trees  of  the  field^  the  forest  fire,  finding 

^  Jottrn.  of  Sac.  Lit.,  October  1865. 

2  Lichtenstein,  Travels  in  South  Africa. 

3  Standard,  December  25th,  1896. 
■*  Fr.  Alvarez. 

5  Barheb.,  Chron.  Syr.,  p.  784;  Burckhardt,  Notes,  II.  90. 
«  i.  20,  17.  '  i.  19. 


404  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

an  easy  prey  in  the  trees  which  have  been  reduced  to 
firewood  by  the  locusts'  teeth. 

Even  in  the  great  passage  in  which  he  passes  from 
history  to  Apocalypse,  from  the  gloom  and  terror  of 
the  locusts  to  the  lurid  dawn  of  Jehovah's  Day,  Joel 
keeps  within  the  actual  facts  of  experience  :— - 

Day  of  darkness  and  murk, 
Day  of  cloud  and  heavy  mist, 
Like  dawn  scattered  on  the  mountains ^ 
A  people  many  and  powerful. 

No  one  who  has  seen  a  cloud  of  locusts  can  question 
the  realism  even  of  this  picture  :  the  heavy  gloom  of 
the  immeasurable  mass  of  them,  shot  by  gleams  of 
light  where  a  few  of  the  sun's  imprisoned  beams  have 
broken  through  or  across  the  storm  of  lustrous  wings. 
This  is  like  dawn  beaten  down  upon  the  hilltops,  and 
crushed  by  rolHng  masses  of  cloud,  in  conspiracy  to 
prolong  the  night.  No  :  the  only  point  at  which  Joel 
leave"!  absolute  fact  for  the  wilder  combinations  of 
Apocalypse  is  at  the  very  close  of  his  description, 
chap.  ii.  10  and  ii,  and  just  before  his  call  to  repent- 
ance. Here  we  find,  mixed  with  the  locusts,  earth- 
quake and  thunderstorm  ;  and  Joel  has  borrowed  these 
from  the  classic  pictures  of  the  Day  of  the  Lord,  using 
some  of  the  very  phrases  of  the  latter  : — 

Earth  trembles  before  them, 

Heaven  quakes, 

Sun  and  moon  become  black, 

The  stars  withdraw  their  shining, 

And  Jehovah' utters  His  voice  before  His  army. 

Joel,  then,  describes,  and  does  not  unduly  enhance, 
the  terrors  of  an   actual   plague.     At  first  his  whole 


Joeli.-ii.  17]   LOCUSTS  AND  THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD     40^ 

Strength  is  so  bent  to  make  his  people  feel  these, 
that,  though  about  to  call  to  repentance,  he  does  not 
detail  the  national  sins  which  require  it.  In .  his  open- 
ing verses  he  summons  the  drunkards,^  but  that 
is  merely  to  lend  vividness  to  his  picture  of  facts, 
because  men  of  such  habits  will  be  the  first  to  feel  a 
plague  of  this  kind.  Nor  does  Joel  yet  ask  his  hearers 
what  the  calamity  portends.  At  first  he  only  demands 
that  they  shall  feel  it,  in  its  uniqueness  and  its  own 
sheer  force. 

Hence  the  peculiar  style  of  the  passage.  Letter  for 
letter,  this  is  one  of  the  heaviest  passages  in  prophecy. 
The  proportion  in  Hebrew  of  liquids  to  the  other  letters 
is  not  large ;  but  here  it  is  smaller  than  ever.  The 
explosives  and  dentals  are  very  numerous.  There  are 
several  keywords,  with  hard  consonants  and  long  vowels, 
used  again  and  again  :  Shuddadh,  'abhlah,  'umlal,  hob- 
hish.  The  longer  lines  into  which  Hebrew  parallelism 
tends  to  run  are  replaced  by  a  rapid  series  of  short, 
heavy  phrases,  falling  like  blows.  Critics  have  called 
it  rhetoric.  But  it  is  rhetoric  of  a  very  high  order 
and  perfectly  suited  to  the  prophet's  purpose.  Look  at 
chap.  i.  10 :  Shuddadh  sadheh,  'abhlah  'adhamah,  shud- 
dadh daghan,  hobhish  tirosh,  'umlal  yishar.^  Joel  loads 
his  clauses  with  the  most  leaden  letters  he  can  find,  and 
drops  them  in  quick  succession,  repeating  the  same 
heavy  word  again  and  again,  as  if  he  would  stun  the 
careless  people  into  some  sense  of  the  bare,  brutal 
weight  of  the  calamity  which  has  befallen  them. 

Now  Joel  does  this  because  he  believes  that,  if  his 
people  feel  the  plague  in  its  proper  violence,  they  must 
be  convinced  that  it  comes  from  Jehovah.     The  keynote 

'  i.  5.  ^  Cf.  i.  12,  13,  and  many  verses  in  chap.  ii. 


4o6  THE    TWELVE  PROPHETS 

of  this  part  of  the  prophecy  is  found  in  chap.  i.   15  : 
*'  Keshodh  mishshaddhai,"  like   violence  from  the  All- 
violent  doth   it  come.     "  If  you  feel  this  as  it  is,  you 
will    feel    Jehovah    Himself   in    it.      By   these    very 
blows,    He   and    His    Day   are  near.     We   had    been 
forgetting  how   near."     Joel    mentions  no    crime,   nor 
enforces  any    virtue  :  how   could  he  have  done  so  in 
so  strong  a  sense  that  "the  Judge  was  at  the  door"  ? 
To  make  men  feel  that  they  had  forgotten  they  were 
in  reach  of  that  Almighty  Hand,  which  could  strike  so 
suddenly  and   so  hard — Joel  had  time   only  to  make 
men   feel  that,  and   to  call   them    to    repentance.      In 
this  w^e  probably  see  some  reflection   of  the  age  :  an 
age  when    men's    thoughts   were    thrusting   the  Deity 
further  and  further  from  their  life ;  when  they  put  His 
Law  and  Temple  between  Him  and  themselves  ;  and 
when  their  religion,  devoid  of  the  sense  of  His  Presence, 
had  become  a  set  of  formal  observances,  the  rending  of 
garments  and  not  of  hearts.     But  He,  whom  His  own 
ordinances    had    hidden    from    His   people,    has    burst 
forth  through  nature  and  in   sheer  force  of  calamity. 
He  has  revealed  Himself,  El-Shaddhai,  God  All-violent^ 
as  He  was  known  to  their  fathers,  who  had  no  elaborate 
law  or  ritual  to  put  between  their  fearful  hearts  and 
His  terrible  strength,  but  cowered  before  Him,  helpless 
on  the  stripped  soil,  and  naked  beneath  His  thunder. 
By  just  these  means  did  Elijah  and  Amos  bring  God 
home  to  the  hearts  of  ancient  Israel.     In  Joel  we  see 
the  revival  of  the  old  nature-religion,  and  the  revenge 
that  it  was  bound  to  take  upon  the  elaborate  systems 
which  had  displaced  it,  but  which  by  their  formalism  and 
their  artificial  completeness  had  made  men  forget  that 
near  presence  and  direct  action  of  the  Almighty  which 
it  is  nature's  own  office  to  enforce  upon  the  heart. 


Joeli.-ii.  17]   LOCUSTS  AND  THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD     407 

The  thing  is  true,  and  permanently  valid.  Only  the 
great  natural  processes  can  break  up  the  systems  of 
dogma  and  ritual  in  which  we  make  ourselves  com- 
fortable and  formal,  and  drive  us  out  into  God's  open 
air  of  reality.  In  the  crash  of  nature's  forces  even 
our  particular  sins  are  forgotten,  and  we  feel,  as  in  the 
immediate  presence  of  God,  our  whole,  deep  need  of 
repentance.  So  far  from  blaming  the  absence  of  special 
ethics  in  Joel's  sermon,  we  accept  it  as  natural  and 
proper  to  the  occasion. 

Such,  then,  appears  to  be  the  explanation  of  the  first 
part  of  the  prophecy,  and  its  development  towards  the 
call  to  repentance,  which  follows  it.  If  we  are  correct, 
the  assertion  ^  is  false  that  no  plan  was  meant  by  the 
prophet.  For  not  only  is  there  a  plan,  but  the  plan 
is  most  suitable  to  the  requirements  of  Israel,  after 
their  adoption  of  the  v/hole  Law  in  445,  and  forms  one 
of  the  most  necessary  and  interesting  developments 
of  all  religion  :  the  revival,  in  an  artificial  period,  of 
those  primitive  forces  of  religion  which  nature  alone 
supplies,  and  which  are  needed  to  correct  formalism 
and  the  forgetfulness  of  the  near  presence  of  the 
Almighty.  We  see  in  this,  too,  the  reason  of  Joel's 
archaic  style,  both  of  conception  and  expression  :  that 
likeness  of  his  to  early  prophets  which  has  led  so  many 
to  place  him  between  Elijah  and  Amos.^  They  are 
wrong.  Joel's  simplicity  is  that  not  of  early  prophecy, 
but  of  the  austere  forces  of  this  revived  and  applied  to 
the  artificiality  of  a  later  age. 

One  other  proof  of  Joel's  conviction  of  the  rehgious 
meaning  of  the  plague  might  also  have  been  pled  by 
the  earlier  prophets,  but  certainly  not  in  the  terms  in 

'  Of  Merx  and  others  ;  see  above,  p.  394.  -  See  above,  p.  377, 


4o8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

which  Joel  expresses  it.  Amos  and  Hosea  had  both 
described  the  destruction  of  the  country's  fertility  in 
their  day  as  God's  displeasure  on  His  people  and  (as 
Hosea  puts  it)  His  divorce  of  His  Bride  from  Himself.^ 
But  by  them  the  physical  calamities  were  not  threatened 
alone  :  banishment  from  the  land  and  from  enjoyment 
of  its  fruits  was  to  follow  upon  drought,  locusts 
and  famine.  In  threatening  no  captivity  Joel  differs 
entirely  from  the  early  prophets.  It  is  a  mark  of 
his  late  date.  And  he  also  describes  the  divorce 
between  Jehovah  and  Israel,  through  the  interruption 
of  the  ritual  by  the  plague,  in  terms  and  with  an  accent 
which  could  hardly  have  been  employed  in  Israel  before 
the  Exile.  After  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  and 
restoration  of  the  daily  sacrifices  morning  and  evening, 
the  regular  performance  of  the  latter  was  regarded  by 
the  Jews  with  a  most  superstitious  sense  of  its  indis- 
pensableness  to  the  national  life.  Before  the  Exile, 
Jeremiah,  for  instance,  attaches  no  importance  to  it,  in 
circumstances  in  which  it  would  have  been  not  un- 
natural for  him,  priest  as  he  was,  to  do  so.^  But  after 
the  Exile,  the  greater  scrupulousness  of  the  religious 
life,  and  its  absorption  in  ritual,  laid  extraordinary 
emphasis  upon  the  daily  offering,  which  increased  to 
a  most  painful  degree  of  anxiety  as  the  centuries  went 
on.^  The  New  Testament  speaks  of  the  Twelve  Tribes 
constantly  serving  God  day  and  night;  ^  and  Josephus, 
while  declaring  that  in  no  siege  of  Jerusalem  before 
the  last  did  the  interruption  ever  take  place  in  spite 
of  the  stress  of  famine  and  war  combined,  records  the 

^  See  Vol.  I.,  pp.  242,  245  f. 
-  Jer.  xiv. 

^  Cf.  Ezek.  xlvi.  15  on  the  Thamid,  and  Neh.  x.  33;  Dan.  viii.   ii, 
xi.  31,  xii.  II :  cf.  p.  382.  *  Acts  xxvi.  7. 


Joeli.-ii.  17]   LOCUSTS  AND  THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD    409 

awful  impression  made  alike  on  Jew  and  heathen  by 
the  giving  up  of  the  daily  sacrifice  on  the  17th  of  July, 
A.D.  70,  during  the  investment  of  the  city  by  Titus.^ 
This  disaster,  which  Judaism  so  painfully  feared  at  every 
crisis  in  its  history,  actually  happened,  Joel  tells  us, 
during  the  famine  caused  by  the  locusts.  Cut  off  are 
the  meal  and  the  drink  offerings  from  the  house  of 
Jehovah}  Is  not  food  cut  off  from  our  eyes,  joy  and 
gladness  from  the  house  of  our  God?^  Perhaps  He  will 
turn  and  relent,  and  leave  a  blessing  behind  Him,  meal 
and  drink  offering  for  Jehovah  our  God}  The  break 
"  of  the  continual  symbol  of  gracious  intercourse  be- 
tween Jehovah  and  His  people,  and  the  main  office  of 
religion,"  means  divorce  between  Jehovah  and  Israel. 
Wail  like  a  bride  girt  in  sackcloth  for  the  husband  of  her 
youth  I  Wail  J  O  ministers  of  the  altar,  O  ministers  of 
God!^  This  then  was  another  reason  for  reading  in 
the  plague  of  locusts  more  than  a  physical  meaning. 
This  was  another  proof,  only  too  intelligible  to  scrupu- 
lous Jews,  that  the  great  and  terrible  Day  of  the 
Lord  was  at  hand. 

Thus  Joel  reaches  the  climax  of  his  argument. 
Jehovah  is  near.  His  Day  is  about  to  break.  From 
this  it  is  impossible  to  escape  on  the  narrow  path  of 
disaster  by  which  the  prophet  has  led  up  to  it.  But 
beneath  that  path  the  prophet  passes  the  ground  of  a 
broad  truth,  and  on  that  truth,  while  judgment  remains 
still  as  real,  there  is  room  for  the  people  to  turn  from 
it.  If  experience  has  shown  that  God  is  in  the  present, 
near  and  inevitable,  faith  remembers  that  He  is  there 
not  willingly  for  judgment,   but  with  all   His  ancient 

^  XIV.  Antt.  iv.  3,  xvi.  2;  VI.  Wars  ii.  i.  *  ii.  14. 

'  i.  9,  13-  '  i-  8,  13- 

3  i.  16. 


410  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

feeling  for  Israel  and  His  zeal  to  save  her.  If  the 
people  choose  to  turn,  Jehovah,  as  their  God  and  as 
one  who  works  for  their  sake,  will  save  them.  Of  this 
God  assures  them  by  His  own  word.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  prophecy  He  speaks  for  Himself  Hitherto  the 
prophet  has  been  describing  the  plague  and  summoning 
to  penitence.  But  now  oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts} 
The  great  covenant  xidimtj  Jehovah  your  God,  is  solemnly 
repeated  as  if  symbolic  of  the  historic  origin  and  age- 
long endurance  of  Jehovah's  relation  to  Israel ;  and  the 
very  words  of  blessing  are  repeated  which  were  given 
when  Israel  was  called  at  Sinai  and  the  covenant 
ratified  : — 

For  He  is  gracious  and  nterciful. 
Long-suffering  and  plenteous  in  leal  love, 
And  relents  Him  of  the  evil 

He  has  threatened  upon  you.  Once  more  the  nation 
is  summoned  to  try  Him  by  prayer :  the  solemn  prayer 
of  all  Israel,  pleading  that  He  should  not  give  His  people 
to  reproach. 


The  Word  of  Jehovah 
which  came  to  Jo' el  the  son  of  PethtVel? 

Hear  this,  ye  old  men, 

And  give  ear,  all  inhabitants  of  the  land! 

Has  the  like  been  in  your  days, 

Or  in  the  days  of  your  fathers  ? 

Tell  it  to  your  children, 

And  your  children  to  their  children, 

And  their  children  to  the  generation  that  follows. 

'  ii.  12.  2  LXX.  Badov/jX. 


Joeli.-ii.  17]    LOCUSTS  AND  THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD     41: 


That  which   the   Shearer  left    the    Swarmer  hath 

eateUy 
And  that  which  the  Swarmer  left  the  Lapper  hath 

eaten  y 
And  that  which  the  Lapper  left  the  Devourer  hath 

eaten. 

These  are  four  different  names  for  locusts,  which  it 
is  best  to  translate  by  their  literal  meaning.  Some  think 
that  they  represent  one  swarm  of  locusts  in  four  stages 
of  development,  but  this  cannot  be,  because  the  same 
swarm  never  returns  upon  its  path,  to  complete  the  work 
of  destruction  which  it  had  begun  in  an  earlier  stage  of 
its  growth.  Nor  can  the  first-named  be  the  adult  brood 
from,  whose  eggs  the  others  spring,  as  Doughty  has 
described,^  for  that  would  account  only  for  two  of  the 
four  names.  Joel  rather  describes  successive  swarms 
of  the  insect,  without  reference  to  the  stages  of  its 
growth,  and  he  does  so  as  a  poet,  using,  in  order  to 
bring  out  the  full  force  of  its  devastation,  several  of  the 
Hebrew  names,  that  were  given  to  the  locust  as  epithets 
of  various  aspects  of  its  destructive  power.  The  names, 
it  is  true,  cannot  be  said  to  rise  in  climax,  but  at  least 
the  most  sinister  is  reserved  to  the  last.^ 

Rouse  ye,  drunkards,  and  weep, 

And  wail,  all  ye  bibbers  of  wine  I 

The  new  wine  is  cut  off  from  your  mouth  I 

For  a  nation  is  come  up  on  My  land, 

Powerful  and  numberless ; 

>  See  above,  pp.  399  f. 

2  7^Dn  from  7011,  used  in  the  O.T.  only  in  Deut.  xxviii.  38,  to  devour] 
but  in  post-biblical  Hebrew  to  utterly  destroy,  bring  to  an  end,  Talmud 
Jerus.:  Taanith  III.  66^?,  "Why  is  the  locust  called  P^DH?  Because 
it  brings  everything  to  an  end." 


412  TtiE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

His  teeth  are  the  teeth  of  the  UoUy 
And  the  fangs  ^  of  the  lioness  his. 
My  vine  he  has  turned  to  waste^ 
And  My  fig-tree  to  splinters  ; 
He  hath  peeled  it  and  strawed  it, 
Bleached  are  its  branches  ! 

Wail  as  a  bride  girt  in  sackcloth  for  the  spouse  of 

her  youth. 
Cut  off  are  the  meal  and  drink  offerings  from  the 

house  of  Jehovah  I 
In  grief  are  the  priests,  the  ministers  of  Jehovah. 
The  fields  are  blasted,  the  ground  is  in  grief, 
Blasted  is  the  corn,  abashed  is  the  new  wine,  the  oil 

pines  away. 
Be  ye  abashed,  O  ploughmen  ! 
Wail,  O  vine-dressers. 
For  the  wheat  and  the  barley; 
The  harvest  is  lost  from  the  field  ! 
The  vine  is  abashed,  and  the  fig-tree  is  drooping; 
Pomegranate,  palm  too  and  apple. 
All  trees  of  the  field  are  dried  up  : 
Yea,  joy  is  abashed  and  away  from  the  children  of 

men. 

In  this  passage  the  same  feehng  is  attributed  to 
men  and  to  the  fruits  of  the  land  :  In  grief  are  the 
priests,  the  ground  is  in  grief.  And  it  is  repeatedly 
said  that  all  alike  are  abashed.  By  this  heavy  word 
we  have  sought  to  render  the  effect  of  the  similarly 
sounding  "  hobhisha,"  that  our  EngHsh  version  renders 
ashamed.     It    signifies   to   be    frustrated,    and   so   dis- 

^  A.V.  cheek-teeth^  K.V .  jaw-teetJi,  or  eye-teeth.  "  Possibly  (from  the 
Arabic)  projectors  " :  Driver. 


Joeli.-ii.  17]   LOCUSTS  AND  THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD     413 

heartened,  put  out:   soured  would   be    an    equivalent, 
applicable  to  the  vine  and  to  joy  and  to  men's  hearts. 

Put  on  mourning,  O  priests,  beat  the  breast; 
Wail,  ye  ministers  of  the  altars- 
Come,  lie  down  in  sackcloth,  O  ministers  of  my  God: 
For  meal-offering  and  drink-offering  are   cut  off 
from  the  house  of  your  God. 

Hallow  a  fast,  summon  an  assembly, 

Gather^  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  to  the  house 

^       of  your  God; 

And  cry  to  Jehovah  : 

^^  Alas  for  the  Day  I     At  hand  is   the   Day   of 

Jehovah  / 
And  as  vehemence  from  the  Vehement"^  doth  it  come." 
Is  not  food  cut  off  from  before  us, 
Gladness  and  joy  from  the  house  of  our  God? 
The  grains  shrivel  under  their  hoes^ 
The  garners  are  desolate,  the  barns  broken  down. 
For  the  corn  is   withered — what  shall  we  put   in 

them  ?  ^ 
The  herds  of  cattle  huddle  together,^  for  they  have 

no  pasture  ; 

'  Heb.  text  inserts  elders,  which  may  be  taken  as  vocative,  or  with 
the  LXX.  as  accusative,  but  after  the  latter  we  should  expect  and. 
Wellhausen  suggests  its  deletion,  and  Nowack  regards  it  as  an 
intrusion.     For  IQDJ^  Wellhausen  reads  ISDXn,  be  ye  gathered. 

"-  Keshodh  mishshaddhai  (Isa.  xiii.  6) ;  Driver,  as  overpowering 
from  the  Overpoiverer. 

^  A.V.  clods.  DrrrilDIJO:  the  meaning  is  doubtful,  but  the  corre- 
sponding Arabic  word  means  besom  or  shovel  or  (P.E.F.Q.,  1891, 
p.  Ill,  with  plate)  hoe,  and  the  Aram,  shovel.     See  Driver's  note. 

*  Reading,  after  the  LXX.  tL  aTrodrjao/jLev  eavroh  (probably  an  error 
for  iu  avToTs),  UTM  mT'JJ  HD  for  the  Massoretic  nonn  nnJNJ  HID 
How  the  beasts  sob!  to  which  A.V.  and  Driver  adhere. 

*  Lit.  press  themselves  in  perplexity. 


414 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


Yea,  the  flocks  of  sheep  are  forlorn} 

To  Thee,  Jehovah,  do  I  cry  : 

For  fire  has  devoured  the  pastures  of  the  steppes,"^ 

And  the  flame  hath  scorched  all  the  trees  of  the  field. 

The  wild  beasts  pant  up  to  Thee : 

For  the  watercourses  are  dry, 

And  fire  has  devoured  the  pastures  of  the  steppes. 

Here,  with  the  close  of  chap,  i.,  Joel's  discourse 
takes  pause,  and  in  chap.  ii.  he  begins  a  second  with 
another  call  to  repentance  in  face  of  the  same  plague. 
But  the  plague  has  progressed.  The  locusts  are  de- 
scribed now  in  their  invasion  not  of  the  country  but 
of  the  towns,  to  which  they  pass  after  the  country  is 
stripped.  For  illustration  of  the  latter  see  above,  p.  401. 
The  horn  which  is  to  be  blown,  ver.  i,  is  an  alarm 
horn^  to  warn  the  people  of  the  approach  of  the  Day 
of  the  Lord,  and  not  the  Shophar  which  called  the 
people  to  a  general  assembly,  as  in  ver.   15. 

Blow  a  horn  in  Zion, 

Sound  the  alarm  in  My  holy  mountain  ! 

Let  all  inhabitants  of  the  land  tremble, 

For  the  Day  of  Jehovah  comes — it  is  near  ! 

Day   of  darkness   and  murk,    day   of  cloud  and 

heavy  mist.^ 
Like  dawn  scattered'""  on  the  mountains^ 


1  Reading,    with   Wellhausen    and    Nowack    ("perhaps    rightl}'," 
Driver)  "iDt^:  for  1DK^N3,  are  guilty  or  punished. 

2  I^ID,  usually  rendered  wilderness  or  desert^    but  literally  place 
where  the  sheep  are  driven,  land  not  cultivated.    See  Hist.  Geog.,  p.  656. 

^  See  on  Amos  iii.  6 :  Vol.  I.,  p.  82. 
*  Zeph.  i.  15.     See  above,  p.  58. 

5  b^'lS  in  Oal  to  spread  abroad,  but  the  passive  is  here  to  be  taken 
in  the  same  sense  as  the  Ni.  in  Ezek.  xvii.  21,  dispersed.    The  figure 


Joeli.-ii.  17]  LOCUSTS  AND  THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD    415 

A  people  many  and  powerful ; 

Its  like  has  not  been  from  of  old^ 

And  shall  not  again  be  for  years  of  generation  upon 

generation. 
Before  it  the  fire  devours^ 
And  behind  the  flame  consumes. 
Like  the  garden  of  Eden  ^  is  the  land  in  front, 
And  behind  it  a  desolate  deserts- 
Yea,  it  lets  nothing  escape. 
Their  visage  is  the  visage  of  horses, 
And  like  horsemen  they  run. 
They  rattle  like  chariots  over  the  tops  of  the  hills. 
Like  the  crackle  of  flames  devouring  stubble, 
Like  a  powerful  people  prepared  for  battle. 
Peoples  are  writhing  before  them, 
Every  face  gathers  blackness. 

Like  warriors  they  run, 

Like  fighting-men  they  come  up  the  wall; 

They  march  every  man  by  himself^ 

And  they  ravel  ^  not  their  paths. 

None  jostles  his  comrade, 

They  march  every  man  on  his  track^ 

And  plunge  through  the  missiles  unbroken  J^ 

is  of  dawn  crushed  by  and  struggling  with  a  mass  of  cloud  and  mist, 
and  expresses  the  gleams  of  white  which  so  often  break  through  a 
locust  cloud.     See  above,  p.  404. 

'  So  travellers  have  described  the  effect  of  locusts.  See  above, 
p.  403. 

-  Ezek.  xxxvi.  35. 

^  Heb.  m  his  own  ways. 

*  jltD^y,  an  impossible  metaphor,  so  that  most  read  jlHiyS  a  root 
found  only  in  Micah  vii.  3  (see  Vol.  I.,  p.  428),  to  twist  or  tangle  y 
but  Wellhausen  reads  |-iri-^y^j  twist,  Eccles.  vii.  13. 

^  Heb.  highroad,  as  if  defined  and  heaped  up  for  him  alone. 

^  See  above,  p.  401. 


4i6  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

They  scour  the  city,  run  upon  the  walls. 

Climb  into  the  houses,  and  enter  the  windows  like  a 

thief. 
Earth  trembles  before  them, 
Heaven  quakes. 
Sun  and  moon  become  black, 
The  stars  withdraw  their  shining. 
And  Jehovah  utters  His  voice  before  His  army : 
For  very  great  is  His  host; 
Yea,  powerful  is  He  that  performeth  His  word. 
Great  is  the  Day  of  Jehovah,  and  very  awful: 
Who  may  abide  it  ?  ^ 

But  now  hear  the  oracle  of  Jehovah  : 
Turn  ye  to  Me  with  all  your  heart. 
And  with  fasting  and  weeping  and  mourning. 
Rend  ye  your  hearts  and  not  your  garments. 
And  turn  to  Jehovah  your  God  : 
For  He  is  gracious  and  merciful, 
Long-suffering  and  plenteous  in  love, 
And  relents  of  the  evil. 
Who  knows  but  He  will  turn  and  relent, 
And  leave  behind  Him  a  blessing. 
Meal-offering  and  drink-offering  to  Jehovah  your 
God? 

Blow  a  horn  in  Zion, 

Hallow  a  fast,  summon  the  assembly  ! 

Gather  the  people,  hallow  the  congregation. 

Assemble  the   old  men^  gather  the   children,    and 

infants  at  the  breast; 
Let  the  bridegroom  come  forth  from  his  chamber, 

'  Zeph.  i,  14;  "Mai.'  iii.  2. 

^  So  (and  not  elders)  in  contrast  to  children, 


Joeli.-ii.i7]   LOCUSTS  AND  THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD    417 

And  the  bride  from  her  bower} 

Let  the  priests^    the    ministers    of  Jehovah^    weep 

between  porch  and  altar; 
Let  them  say,  Spare,  O  Jehovah,  Thy  people, 
And  give  not  Thine  heritage  to  dishonour,  for  the 

heathen  to  mock  them :  ^ 
Why  should  it  be  said  among  the  nations.  Where  is 

their  God? 

'  Canopy  or  pavilion^  bridal  tent. 

^  D2  7^u?,  which  may  mean  either  rule  over  them  or  mock  them, 
but  the  parallelism  decides  for  the  latter. 


VOL.  11.  2J 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

PROSPERITY  AND   THE  SPIRIT 
Joel  ii.  18-32  (Eng. ;  ii.  18— iii.  Heb.) 

n^  HEN  did  Jehovah  become  jealous  for  His  land,  and 
took  pity  upon  His  people — with  these  words  Joel 
opens  the  second  half  of  his  book.  Our  Authorised 
Version  renders  them  in  the  future  tense,  as  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  prophet's  discourse,  which  had  threatened 
the  Day  of  the  Lord,  urged  the  people  to  penitence, 
and  now  promises  that  their  penitence  shall  be  followed 
by  the  Lord's  mercy.  But  such  a  rendering  forces  the 
grammar  ;  ^  and  the  Revised  English  Version  is  right 
in  taking  the  verbs,  as  the  vast  majority  of  critics  do, 
in  the  past.  Joel's  call  to  repentance  has  closed,  and 
has  been  successful.     The  fast  has  been  hallowed,  the 

*  A.V.,  adhering  to  the  Massoretic  text,  in  which  the  verbs  are 
pointed  for  the  past,  has  evidently  understood  them  as  instances  of 
the  prophetic  perfect.  But  "this  is  grammatically  indefensible": 
Driver,  in  loco ;  see  his  Heb.  Tenses,  §  82,  Obs.  Calvin  and  others, 
who  take  the  verbs  of  ver.  18  as  future,  accept  those  of  the  next 
verse  as  past  and  with  it  begin  the  narrative.  But  if  God's  answer 
to  His  people's  prayer  be  in  the  past,  so  must  His  jealousy  and 
pity.  All  these  verbs  are  in  the  same  sequence  of  time.  Merx 
proposes  to  change  the  vowel-points  of  the  verbs  and  turn  them  into 
futures.  But  see  above,  p.  395.  Ver.  21  shows  that  Jehovah's  action 
is  past,  and  Nowack  points  out  the  very  unusual  character  of  the 
construction  that  would  follow  from  Merx's  emendation.  Ewald, 
Hitzig,  Kuenen,  Robertson  Smith,  Davidson,  Robertson,  Steiner, 
Wellhausen,  Driver,  Nowack,  etc.,  all  take  the  verbs  in  the  past. 

418 


Joel  ii.  18-32]     PROSPERITY  AND    THE  SPIRIT  419 


prayers  are  heard.  Probably  an  interval  has  elapsed  be- 
tween vv.  17  and  18,  but  in  any  case,  the  people  having 
repented,  nothing  more  is  said  of  their  need  of  doing 
so,  and  instead  we  have  from  God  Himself  a  series  of 
promises,  vv.  19-27,  in  answer  to  their  cry  for  mercy. 
These  promises  relate  to  the  physical  calamity  which 
has  been  suffered.  God  will  destroy  the  locusts,  still 
impending  on  the  land,  and  restore  the  years  which 
His  great  army  has  eaten.  There  follows  in  vv.  28-32 
(Eng. ;  Heb.  chap,  iii.)  the  promise  of  a  great  out- 
pouring of  the  Spirit  on  all  Israel,  amid  terrible 
manifestations  in  heaven  and  earth. 

I.    The  Return  of  Prosperity  (ii.  19-27). 

And  Jehovah  answered  and  said  to  His  people  : 

Loj  I  will  send y oil  corn  and  wine  and  oil, 

And  your  fill  shall  ye  have  of  them; 

And  I  will  not  again  make  you  a  reproach  among 

the  heathen. 
And  the  Northern  Foe  ^  will  I  remove  far  from  you; 
And  I  will  push  him  into  a  land  barren  and  waste y 
His  van   to   the  eastern  sea  and  his  rear  to   the 

western^ 
Till  the  stench  of  him  rises^ 
Because  he  hath  done  greatly. 

^  This  is  scarcely  a  name  for  the  locusts,  who,  though  they  might 
reach  Palestine  from  the  N,E.  under  certain  circumstances,  came 
generally  from  E.  and  S.E.  But  see  above,  p.  397  :  so  Kuenen, 
Wellhausen,  Nowack.  W.  R.  Smith  suggests  the  whole  verse  as  an 
allegorising  gloss.  Hitzig  thought  of  the  locusts  only,  and  rendered 
••JIDVn  6  TvcpcoviKo's,  Acts  xxvii.  14 ;  but  this  is  not  proved. 

*  I.e.  the  Dead  Sea  (Ezek.  xlvii.  18;  Zech.  xiv.  8)  and  the  Medi- 
terranean. 

'  The  construction  shows  that  the  clause  preceding  this,  )^i^2  iw]}), 
is  a  gloss.  So  Driver.  But  Nowack  gives  the  other  clause  as  the 
gloss. 


420  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Locusts  disappear  with  the  same  suddenness  as 
they  arrive.  A  wind  springs  up  and  they  are  gone.^ 
Dead  Sea  and  Mediterranean  are  at  the  extremes  of 
the  compass,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
prophet  has  abandoned  the  reaHsm  which  has  hitherto 
distinguished  his  treatment  of  the  locusts.  The  plague 
covered  the  whole  land,  on  whose  high  watershed  the 
winds  suddenly  veer  and  change.  The  dispersion  of 
the  locusts  upon  the  deserts  and  the  opposite  seas  was 
therefore  possible  at  one  and  the  same  time.  Jerome 
vouches  for  an  instance  in  his  own  day.  The  other 
detail  is  also  true  to  life.  Jerome  says  that  the  beaches 
of  the  two  seas  were  strewn  with  putrifying  locusts, 
and  Augustine  ^  quotes  heathen  writers  in  evidence  of 
large  masses  of  locusts,  driven  from  Africa  upon  the 
sea,  and  then  cast  up  on  the  shore,  which  gave  rise  to  a 
pestilence.  "The  south  and  east  winds,"  says  Volney 
of  Syria,  "drive  the  clouds  of  locusts  with  violence  into 
the  Mediterranean,  and  drown  them  in  such  quantities, 
that  when  their  dead  are  cast  on  the  shore  they  infect 
the  air  to  a  great  distance."  ^  The  prophet  continues, 
celebrating  this  destruction  of  the  locusts  as  if  it  were 
already  realised — the  Lord  hath  done  greatly^  ver.  21. 
That  among  the  blessings  he  mentions  a  full  supply 
of  rain  proves  that  we  were  right  in  interpreting  him 
to  have  spoken  of  drought  as  accompanying  the 
locusts.* 

Fear  not,  O  Land !     Rejoice  and  be  glad. 
For  Jehovah  hath  done  greatly} 
Fear  not,  O  beasts  of  the  field  ! 


'  Nah.  iii.  17;  Exod.  x.  19.  ^  i.  17-20  :  see  above,  p.  403. 

^  De  Civitate  Dei,  III.  31.  ^  Prophetic  past :  Driver, 

^  I.  278,  quoted  by  Pusey. 


Joel  ii.  18-32]     PROSPERITY  AND   THE  SPIRIT  421 

For  the  pastures  of  the  steppes  are  springing  with 

new  grass, 
The  trees  bear  their  fruit, 
Fig-tree  and  vine  yield  their  substance. 
O  sons  of  Zion,  be  glad. 
And  rejoice  in  Jehovah  your  God: 
For  He  hath  given  you  the  early  rain  in  normal 

measure^ 

'  Opinion  is  divided  as  to  the  meaning  of  this  phrase :  HpTVp  = 
for  righteousness.     A.  There  are  those  who  take  it  as  having  a  moral 
reference;   and   (l)  this   is  so  emphatic  to   some   that   they  render 
the  word  for  early  rain,  miD,  which  also  means  teacher  or  revealer, 
in   the   latter  significance.     So   (some   of  them    applying   it   to  the 
Messiah)  Targum,  Symmachus,  the  Vulgate,  doctorem  justitice,  some 
Jews,  e.g.  Rashi  and  Abarbanel,  and  some  moderns,  e.g.  (at  opposite 
extremes)  Pusey  and  Merx.     But,  as  Calvin  points  out  (this  is  another 
instance   of  his   sanity   as   an   exegete,    and    refusal   to   be   led    by 
theological  presuppositions  :  he  says,  "  I  do  not  love  strained  exposi- 
tions"), this  does  not  agree  with  the  context,  which  speaks  not  of 
spiritual  but  wholly  of  physical  blessings.     (2)  Some,  who  take  n")1D 
as  early  rain,  give  HpTV^  the  meaning  ybr  righteousness,  ad  justitiam, 
either  in  the  sense  that  God  will  give  the  rain  as  a  token  of  His 
own  righteousness,  or  in  order  to  restore  or  vindicate  the  people's 
righteousness  (so  Davidson,  E.xpositor,  1888,  I.,  p.  203  n.),  in  the  fre- 
quent sense  in  which  HpTV  is  eniployed  in  Isa.  xl.  ff.  (see  Isaiah  xl. — 
Ixvi.,  Expositor's  Bible,  pp.  219  ff.).  Cf.  Hosea  x.  13,  plV ;  above,  Vol.  I., 
p.  289,  n.  2.     This  of  course  is  possible,  especially  in  view  of  Israel 
having  been  made  by  their  plagues  a  reproach  among  the  heathen. 
Still,  if  Joel  had  intended  this  meaning,  he  would  have  applied  the 
phrase,  not  to  the  early  rain  onl}',  but  to  the  whole  series  of  blessings 
by  which  the  people  were  restored  to  their  standing   before  God. 
B.  It  seems,  therefore,  right  to  take  npl^f?  in  a  purely  physical  sense, 
of  the  measure  or  quality  of  the  early  rain.     So  even  Calvin,  rain 
according  to  what  is  just  or  fit;  A.V.  moderately  (inexact);  R.V.  in 
just  measure  ;  Siegfried-Stade  sufficient.     The  root-meaning  of  pTV  is 
probably  according  to  norm  (cf.  Isaiah  xl. — Ixvi.,  p.  215),  and  in  that 
case  the  meaning  would  be  rain  of  normal  quantity.     This  too  suits 
the  parallel  in  the  next  clause  :  as  formerly.     In  Himyaritic  the  word 
is  applied  to  good  harvests.     A  man  prays  to  God  for  "lOhXI  ?p2X 
Dpn^,  full  or  good  harvests  and  fruits :  Corp.  Inscr.   Sem.,   Pars 
Quarta,  Tomus  I.,  No.  2,  lin.  1-5 ;  cf.  the  note. 


422  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

And  poured^  on  you  winter  rain""  and  latter  rain  as 

before} 
And  the  threshing-floors  shall  be  full  of  wheat ^ 
And  the  vats  stream  over  with  new  wine  and  oil. 
And  I   will  restore   to  you   the  years   which   the 

Swarmer  has  eateji, 
The  Lapper,  the  Devourer  and  the  Shearer^ 
My  great  army  whom  I  sent  among  you. 
And  ye  shall  eat  your  food  and  be  full, 
And  praise  the  Name  of  Jehovah  your  God, 
Who  hath  dealt  so  wondrously  with  you; 
And  My  people  shall  be  abashed  nevermore. 
Ye  shall  know  I  am  in  the  midst  of  Israel, 
That  I  am  Jehovah  your  God  and  none  else; 
And  nevermore  shall  My  people  be  abashed. 

2.  The  Outpouring  of  the  Spirit 
(ii.  28-32  Eng. ;  iii.  Heb.). 

Upon  these  promises  of  physical  blessing  there 
follows  another  of  the  pouring  forth  of  the  Spirit :  the 
prophecy  by  which  Joel  became  the  Prophet  of  Pente- 
cost, and  through  which  his  book  is  best  known  among 
Christians. 

When  fertility  has  been  restored  to  the  land,  the 
seasons  again  run  their  normal  courses,  and  the  people 
eat  their  food  and  be  full — It  shall  come  to  pass  after 
these  things,  I  will  pour  out  My  Spirit  upon  all  flesh. 
The  order  of  events  makes  us  pause  to  question  :  does 
Joel   mean    to   imply   that    physical   prosperity   must 

'  Driver,  in  loco. 

^  Heb.  also  repeats  here  early  rain,  but  redundantly. 

^  PK^N"ia,  in  the  first.  A.V.  adds  month.  But  LXX.  and  Syr. 
read  n335J'N"ID,  which  is  probably  the  correct  reading,  as  before  or 
formerly. 


Joel  ii.  18-32]    PROSPERITY  AND   THE  SPIRIT  423 

precede  spiritual  fulness  ?  It  would  be  unfair  to  assert 
that  he  does,  without  remembering  what  he  under- 
stands by  the  physical  blessings.  To  Joel  these  are 
the  token  that  God  has  returned  to  His  people.  The 
drought  and  the  famine  produced  by  the  locusts 
were  signs  of  His  anger  and  of  His  divorce  of  the 
land.  The  proofs  that  He  has  relented,  and  taken 
Israel  back  into  a  spiritual  relation  to  Himself,  can, 
therefore,  from  Joel's  point  of  view,  only  be  given 
by  the  healing  of  the  people's  wounds.  In  plenteous 
rains  and  full  harvests  God  sets  His  seal  to  man's 
penitence.  Rain  and  harvest  are  not  merely  physical 
benefits,  but  religious  sacraments  :  signs  that  God  has 
returned  to  His  people,  and  that  His  zeal  is  again 
stirred  on  their  behalf.^  This  has  to  be  made  clear 
before  there  can  be  talk  of  any  higher  blessing. 
God  has  to  return  to  His  people  and  to  show  His 
love  for  them  before  He  pours  forth  His  Spirit  upon 
them.  That  is  what  Joel  intends  by  the  order  he  pur- 
sues, and  not  that  a  certain  stage  of  physical  comfort 
is  indispensable  to  a  high  degree  of  spiritual  feeling 
and  experience.  The  early  and  latter  rains,  the  fulness 
of  corn,  wine  and  oil,  are  as  purely  religious  to  Joel, 
though  not  so  highly  religious,  as  the  phenomena  of 
the  Spirit  in  men. 

But  though  that  be  an  adequate  answer  to  our 
question  so  far  as  Joel  himself  is  concerned,  it  does 
not  exhaust  the  question  with  regard  to  history  in 
general.  From  Joel's  own  standpoint  physical  bless- 
ings may  have  been  as  religious  as  spiritual ;  but  we 
must  go  further,  and  assert  that  for  Joel's  anticipation 
of  the  baptism  of  the  Spirit  by  a  return  of  prosperity 


i.  18. 


424  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

there  is  an  ethical  reason  and  one  which  is  permanentlj 
vaHd  in  history.  A  certain  degree  of  prosperity,  anc 
even  of  comfort,  is  an  indispensable  condition  of  thai 
universal  and  lavish  exercise  of  the  religious  faculties, 
which  Joel  pictures  under  the  pouring  forth  of  God's 
Spirit. 

The  history  of  prophecy  itself  furnishes  us  with 
proofs  of  this.  When  did  prophecy  most  flourish  in 
Israel  ?  When  had  the  Spirit  of  God  most  freedom 
in  developing  the  intellectual  and  moral  nature  of 
Israel  ?  Not  when  the  nation  was  struggling  with 
the  conquest  and  settlement  of  the  land,  not  when 
it  was  engaged  with  the  embarrassments  and  priva- 
tions of  the  Syrian  wars ;  but  an  Amos,  a  Hosea,  an 
Isaiah  came  forth  at  the  end  of  the  long,  peaceful  and 
prosperous  reigns  of  Jeroboam  II.  and  Uzziah.  The 
intellectual  strength  and  liberty  of  the  great  Prophet 
of  the  Exile,  his  deep  insight  into  God's  purposes  and 
his  large  view  of  the  future,  had  not  been  possible 
without  the  security  and  comparative  prosperity  of 
the  Jews  in  Babylon,  from  among  whom  he  wrote.  In 
Haggai  and  Zechariah,  on  the  other  hand,  who  worked 
in  the  hunger-bitten  colony  of  returned  exiles,  there 
was  no  such  fulness  of  the  Spirit.  Prophecy,  we  saw,^ 
was  then  starved  by  the  poverty  and  meanness  of  the 
national  life  from  which  it  rose.  All  this  is  very 
explicable.  When  men  are  stunned  by  such  a  calamity 
as  Joel  describes,  or  when  they  are  engrossed  by  the 
daily  struggle  with  bitter  enemies  and  a  succession  of 
bad  seasons,  they  may  feel  the  need  of  penitence  and 
be  able  to  speak  with  decision  upon  the  practical  duty 
of  the  moment,   to  a  degree  not  attainable  in  better 

^  Above,  p.  189. 


Joel  ii.  18-32]     PROSPERITY  AND   THE  SPIRIT  425 

days,  but  they  lack  the  leisure,  the  freedom  and  the 
resources  amid  which  their  various  faculties  of  mind 
and  soul  can  alone  respond  to  the  Spirit's  influence. 
Has  it  been  otherwise  in  the  history  of  Christianity  ? 
Our  Lord  Himself  found  His  first  disciples,  not  in  a 
hungry  and  ragged  community,  but  amid  the  prosperity 
and  opulence  of  Galilee.  They  left  all  to  follow  Him 
and  achieved  their  ministry  in  poverty  and  persecution, 
but  they  brought  to  that  ministry  the  force  of  minds 
and  bodies  trained  in  a  very  fertile  land  and  by  a 
prosperous  commerce.^  Paul,  in  his  apostolate,  sus- 
tained himself  by  the  labour  of  his  hands,  but  he  was 
the  child  of  a  rich  civilisation  and  the  citizen  of  a 
great  empire.  The  Reformation  was  preceded  by  the 
Renaissance,  and  on  the  Continent  of  Europe  drew  its 
forces,  not  from  the  enslaved  and  impoverished  popu- 
lations of  Italy  and  Southern  Austria,  but  from  the 
large  civic  and  commercial  centres  of  Germany.  An 
acute  historian,  in  his  recent  lectures  on  the  Economic 
Interpretation  of  History,^  observes  that  every  religious 
revival  in  England  has  happened  upon  a  basis  of  com-  7 
parative  prosperity.  He  has  proved  "  the  opulence 
of  Norfolk  during  the  epoch  of  Lollardy,"  and  pointed 
out  that  "  the  Puritan  movement  was  essentially  and 
originally  one  of  the  middle  classes,  of  the  traders  in 
towns  and  of  the  farmers  in  the  country  " ;  that  the 
religious  state  of  the  Church  of  England  was  never  so 
low  as  among  the  servile  and  beggarly  clergy  of  the 
seventeenth  and  part  of  the  eighteenth  centuries  ;  that 
the  Nonconformist  bodies  who  kept  religion  alive 
during  this   period    were   closely   identified   with   the 


^  Cf.  Hist.  Geog.y  Chap.  XXL,  especially  p.  463. 
2  By  Thorold  Rogers,  pp.  80  if. 


426  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

leading  movements  of  trade  and  finance  ;  ^  and  that  even 
Wesley's  great  revival  of  religion  among  the  labouring 
classes  of  England  took  place  at  a  time  when  prices 
were  far  lower  than  in  the  previous  century,  wages 
had  slightly  risen  and  "  most  labourers  were  small 
occupiers ;  there  was  therefore  in  the  comparative 
plenty  of  the  time  an  opening  for  a  religious  movement 
among  the  poor,  and  Wesley  was  equal  to  the  occasion." 
He  might  have  added  that  the  great  missionary  move- 
ment of  the  nineteenth  century  is  contemporaneous 
with  the  enormous  advance  of  our  commerce  and  our 
empire. 

On  the  whole,  then,  the  witness  of  history  is  uniform. 
Poverty  and  persecution,  famine,  nakedness^  peril  and 
swordy  put  a  keenness  upon  the  spirit  of  religion,  while 
luxury  rots  its  very  fibres  ;  but  a  stable  basis  of  pro- 
sperity is  indispensable  to  every  social  and  religious 
reform,  and  God's  Spirit  finds  fullest  course  in  com- 
munities of  a  certain  degree  of  civilisation  and  of 
freedom  from  sordidness. 

We  may  draw  from  this  an  impressive  lesson  for 
our  own  day.  Joel  predicts  that,  upon  the  new  pro- 
sperity of  his  land,  the  lowest  classes  of  society  shall 
be  permeated  by  the  spirit  of  prophecy.  Is  it  not  part 
of  the  secret  of  the  failure  of  Christianity  to  enlist 
large  portions  of  our  population,  that  the  basis  of  their 
life  is  so  sordid  and  insecure  ?  Have  we  not  yet 
to  learn  from  the  Hebrew  prophets,  that  some  amount 
of  freedom  in  a  people  and  some  amount  of  health  are 
indispensable  to  a  revival  of  religion  ?  Lives  which 
are  strained  and  starved,  lives  which  are  passed  in  rank 
discomfort   and   under   grinding  poverty,  without  the 

'  E.g.  the  Quakers  and  the  Independents.    The  Independents  of  the 
seventeenth  century  "  were  the  founders  of  the  Bank  of  England." 


Joel  ii.  18-32]    PROSPERITY  AND    THE  SPIRIT  427 

possibility  of  the  independence  of  the  individual  or  of 
the  sacredness  of  the  home,  cannot  be  religious  except 
in  the  most  rudimentary  sense  of  the  word.  For  the 
revival  of  energetic  religion  among  such  lives  we  must 
wait  for  a  better  distribution,  not  of  wealth,  but  of  the  v^ 
bare  means  of  comfort,  leisure  and  security.  When,  to 
our  penitence  and  our  striving,  God  restores  the  years 
which  the  locust  has  eaten,  when  the  social  plagues 
of  rich  men's  selfishness  and  the  poverty  of  the  very 
poor  are  lifted  from  us,  then  may  we  look  for  the 
fulfilment  of  Joel's  prediction — even  upon  all  the  slaves 
and  upon  the  handmaidens  will  I  pour  out  My  Spirit  in 
those  days. 

The  economic  problem,  therefore,  has  also  its  place  ^ 
in  the  warfare  for  the  kingdom  of  God. 

And  it  shall  be  that  after  such  things,  I  will  pour  out 

My  Spirit  on  all  flesh; 
And  your  sons  and  your  daughters  shall  prophesy^ 
Your  old  men  shall  dream  dreams, 
Your  young  men  shall  see  visions : 
And  even  upon  all  the  slaves  and  the  handmaidens 

in  those  days  will  I  pour  out  My  Spirit. 
And  I  will  set  signs  in  heaven  and  on  earth. 
Blood  and  fire  and  pillars  of  smoke. 
The  sun  shall  be  turned  to  darkness, 
And  the  moon  to  blood, 
Before  the  coming  of  the  Day  of  Jehovah,  the  great 

and  the  awful. 
And  it  shall  be  that  every  one  who  calls  on  the  name 

of  Jehovah  shall  be  saved  : 
For  in  Mount  Zion  and  in  Jerusalem  shall  be  a 

remnant,  as  Jehovah  hath  spoken, 
And  among  the  fugitives  those  whom  Jehovah  calleth. 


428  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

This  prophecy  divides  into  two  parts — the  outpour- 
ing of  the  Spirit,  and  the  appearance  of  the  terrible  Day 
of  the  Lord. 

The  Spirit  of  God  is  to  be  poured  on  all  fleshy  says 
the  prophet.  By  this  term,  which  is  sometimes  apphed 
to  all  things  that  breathe,  and  sometimes  to  mankind 
as  a  whole,^  Joel  means  Israel  only  :  the  heathen  are 
to  be  destroyed.^  Nor  did  Peter,  when  he  quoted  the 
passage  at  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  mean  anything  more. 
He  spoke  to  Jews  and  proselytes  :  for  the  promise  is  to 
you  and  your  children,  and  to  them  that  are  afar  off: 
it  was  not  till  afterwards  that  he  discovered  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  was  granted  to  the  Gentiles,  and  then 
he"  was  unready  for  the  revelation  and  surprised  by 
it.^  But  within  Joel's  Israel  the  operation  of  the  Spirit 
was  to  be  at  once  thorough  and  universal.  All  classes 
would  be  affected,  and  affected  so  that  the  simplest 
and  rudest  would  become  prophets. 

The  limitation  was  therefore  not  without  its  advan- 
tages. In  the  earlier  stages  of  all  religions,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  be  both  extensive  and  intensive.  With  a  few 
exceptions,  the  Israel  of  Joel's  time  was  a  narrow  and 
exclusive  body,  hating  and  hated  by  other  peoples. 
Behind  the  Law  it  kept  itself  strictly  aloof.  But  without 
doing  so,  Israel  could  hardly  have  survived  or  pre- 
pared itself  at  that  time  for  its  influence  on  the  world. 
Heathenism  threatened  it  from  all  sides  with  the 
most  insidious  of  infections ;  and  there  awaited  it 
in  the  near  future  a  still  more  subtle  and  powerful 
means  of  disintegration.     In  the  wake  of  Alexander's 


*  All   living   things,  Gen.   vi.    17,    19,    etc.;    mankind,  Isa.   xl.   5i 
xlix.  26.     See  Driver's  note. 

■^  Next  chapter.  ^  Acts  x.  45. 


Joel  ii.  18-32]     PROSPERITY  AND   THE  SPIRIT  429 

expeditions,  Hellenism  poured  across  all  the  East. 
There  was  not  a  community  nor  a  religion,  save  Israel's, 
which  was  not  Hellenised.  That  Israel  remained  Israel, 
in  spite  of  Greek  arms  and  the  Greek  mind,  was  due 
MO  the  legalism  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  and  to  what 
we  call  the  narrow  enthusiasm  of  Joel.  The  hearts 
which  kept  their  passion  so  confined  felt  all  the  deeper 
for  its  limits.  They  would  be  satisfied  with  nothing 
less  than  the  inspiration  of  every  Israelite,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  prayer  of  Moses :  Would  to  God  that  all 
JehovaKs  people  were  prophets  !  And  of  itself  this  carries 
Joel's  prediction  to  a  wider  fulfilment.  A  nation  of 
prophets  is  meant  for  the  world.  But  even  the  best  of 
men  do  not  see  the  full  force  of  the  truth  God  gives 
to  them,  nor  follow  it  even  to  its  immediate  conse- 
quences. Few  of  the  prophets  did  so,  and  at  first  none 
of  the  apostles.  Joel  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that 
the  heathen  shall  be  destroyed.  He  does  not  think 
of  Israel's  mission  as  foretold  by  the  Second  Isaiah ; 
nor  of  "  Malachi's  "  vision  of  the  heathen  waiting  upon 
Jehovah.  But  in  the  near  future  of  Israel  there  was 
waiting  another  prophet  to  carry  Joel's  doctrine  to 
its  full  effect  upon  the  world,  to  rescue  the  gospel  of 
God's  grace  from  the  narrowness  of  legalism  and  the 
awful  pressure  of  Apocalypse,  and  by  the  parable  of 
Jonah,  the  type  of  the  prophet  nation,  to  show  to 
Israel  that  God  had  granted  to  the  Gentiles  also  repent- 
ance unto  life. 

That  it  was  the  lurid  clouds  of  Apocalypse,  which 
thus  hemmed  in  our  prophet's  view,  is  clear  from 
the  next  verses.  They  bring  the  terrible  manifesta- 
tions of  God's  wrath  in  nature  very  closely  upon  the 
lavish  outpouring  of  the  Spirit :  the  sun  turned  to  dark- 
ness and  the  moon  to  bloody  the  great  and  terrible  Day 


430  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


of  the  Lord.  Apocalypse  must  always  paralyse  the 
missionary  energies  of  religion.  Who  can  think  of 
converting  the  world,  when-  the  world  is  about  to  be 
convulsed  ?  There  is  only  time  for  a  remnant  to  be 
saved. 

But  when  we  get  rid  of  Apocalypse,  as  the  Book 
of  Jonah  does,  then  we  have  time  and  space  opened 
up  again,  and  the  essential  forces  of  such  a  prophecy 
of  the  Spirit  as  Joel  has  given  us  burst  their  national 
and  temporary  confines,  and  are  seen  to  be  applicable 
to  all  mankind. 


CHAPTER   XXX 

THE  JUDGMENT  OF  THE  HEATHEN 
Joel  iii.  (Eng. ;  iv.  Heb.) 

HITHERTO  Joel  has  spoken  no  syllable  of  the 
heathen,  except  to  pray  that  God  by  His  plagues 
will  not  give  Israel  to  be  mocked  by  them.  But  in 
the  last  chapter  of  the  Book  we  have  Israel's  captivity 
to  the  heathen  taken  for  granted,  a  promise  made  that 
it  will  be  removed  and  their  land  set  free  from  the 
foreigner.  Certain  nations  are  singled  out  for  judg- 
ment, which  is  described  in  the  terms  of  Apocalypse ; 
and  the  Book  closes  with  the  vision,  already  familiar  in 
prophecy,  of  a  supernatural  fertility  for  the  land. 

It  is  quite  another  horizon  and  far  different  interests 
from  those  of  the  preceding  chapter.  Here  for  the 
first  time  we  may  suspect  the  unity  of  the  Book,  and 
listen  to  suggestions  of  another  authorship  than  Joel's. 
But  these  can  scarcely  be  regarded  as  conclusive. 
Every  prophet,  however  national  his  interests,  feels 
it  his  duty  to  express  himself  upon  the  subject  of 
foreign  peoples,  and  Joel  may  well  have  done  so. 
Only,  in  that  case,  his  last  chapter  was  delivered  by 
him  at  another  time  and  in  different  circumstances  from 
the  rest  of  his  prophecies.  Chaps,  i. — ii.  (Eng. ;  i. — iii. 
Heb.)  are   complete  in  themselves.     Chap.   iii.   (Eng. ; 

431 


432  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

iv.  Heb.)  opens  without  any  connection  of  time  or 
subject  with  those  that  precede  it.^ 

The  time  of  the  prophecy  is  a  time  when  Israel's 
fortunes  are  at  low  ebb,-  her  sons  scattered  among  the 
heathen,  her  land,  in  part  at  least,  held  by  foreigners. 
But  it  would  appear  (though  this  is  not  expressly  said, 
and  must  rather  be  inferred  from  the  general  proofs 
of  a  post-exilic  date)  that  Jerusalem  is  inhabited. 
Nothing  is  said  to  imply  that  the  city  needs  to  be 
restored.^ 

All  the  heathen  nations  are  to  be  brought  together 
for  judgment  into  a  certain  valley,  which  the  prophet 
calls  first  the  Vale  of  Jehoshaphat  and  then  the  Vale 
of  Decision.  The  second  name  leads  us  to  infer  that 
the  first,  which  means  Jehovah-judges ^  is  also  symbolic. 
That  is  to  say,  the  prophet  does  not  single  out  a 
definite  valley  already  called  Jehoshaphat.  In  all 
probability,  however,  he  has  in  his  mind's  eye  some 
vale  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem,  for  since 
Ezekiel  *  the  judgment  of  the  heathen  in  face  of  Jeru- 
salem has  been  a  standing  feature  in  Israel's  vision  of 
the  last  things  ;  and  as  no  valley  about  that  city  lends 
itself  to  the  picture  of  judgment  so  well  as  the  valley 
of  the  Kedron  with  the  slopes  of  Olivet,  the  name 
Jehoshaphat   has  naturally  been  applied  to  it.^     Cer- 

1  I  am  unable  to  feel  Driver's  and  Nowack's  arguments  for  a  con- 
nection conclusive.  The  only  reason  Davidson  gives  is  (p.  204)  that 
the  judgment  of  the  heathen  is  an  essential  element  in  the  Day  of 
Jehovah,  a  reason  which  does  not  make  Joel's  authorship  of  the  last 
chapter  certain,  but  only  possible. 

2  The  phrase  of  ver.  i,  when  I  turn  again  the  captivity  ofjudah  attd 
Jerusalem,  may  be  rendered  when  I  restore  the  fortunes  0/ Israel. 

^  See  above,  p.  386,  especially  n.  5,  ^  xxxviii. 

*  Some  have  unnecessarily  thought  of  the  Vale  of  Berakhah,  in 
which  Jehoshaphat  defeated  Moab,  Ammon  and  Edom  (2  Chron.  xx.). 


Joel  in.]        THE  JUDGMENT  OF  THE  HEATHEN  433 

tain  nations  are  singled  out  by  name.  These  are  not 
Assyria  and  Babylon,  which  had  long  ago  perished,  nor 
the  Samaritans,  Moab  and  Ammon,  which  harassed  the 
Jews  in  the  early  days  of  the  Return  from  Babylon, 
but  Tyre,  Sidon,  Philistia,  Edom  and  Egypt.  The 
crime  of  the  first  three  is  the  robbery  of  Jewish 
treasures,  not  necessarily  those  of  the  Temple,  and 
the  selling  into  slavery  of  many  Jews.  The  crime  of 
Edom  and  Egypt  is  that  they  have  shed  the  innocent 
blood  of  Jews.  To  what  precise  events  these  charges 
refer  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  in  our  present 
ignorance  of  Syrian  history  after  Nehemiah.  That 
the  chapter  has  no  explicit  reference  to  the  cruelties 
of  Artaxerxes  Ochus  in  360  would  seem  to  imply  for  it 
a  date  earlier  than  that  year.  But  it  is  possible  that 
ver.  17  refers  to  that,  the  prophet  refraining  from 
accusing  the  Persians  for  the  very  good  reason  that 
Israel  was  still  under  their  rule. 

Another  feature  worthy  of  notice  is  that  the 
Phoenicians  are  accused  of  selling  Jews  to  the  sons  of 
the  Jevanim,  lonians  or  Greeks.^  The  latter  He  on  the 
far  horizon  of  the  prophet/  and  we  know  from  classical 
writers  that  from  the  fifth  century  onwards  numbers  of 
Syrian  slaves  were  brought  to  Greece.  The  other 
features  of  the  chapter  are  borrowed  from  earlier 
prophets. 

For,  behold,  in  those  days  and  in  that  time, 

When  I  bring  again  the  captivity  ^  of  Judah  and 

Jerusalem^ 
I  will  also  gather  all  the  nations, 
And  bring  them  down  to  the  Vale  of  Jehoshaphat ;  ^ 

'  See  above,  p.  381,  nn.  5,  6.    *  Or  turn  again  the  fortunes. 
'^  Ver.  66.  ^  Jehovah-judges.     See  above,  p.  432. 

VOL.  II.  28 


434  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

And  I  will  enter  into  judgment  with  them  there y 

For  My  people  and  for  My  heritage  Israel, 

Whom  they  have  scattered  among  the  heathen. 

And  My  land  have  they  divided. 

And  they  have  cast  lots  for  My  people  :  ^ 

They  have  given  a  boy  for  a  harlot,^ 

And  a  girl  have  they  sold  for  wine  and  drunk  it. 

And  again,  what  are  ye  to  Me,  Tyre  and  Sidon  and 

all  circuits  of  Philistia  ?  ^ 
Is  it  any  deed  of  Mine  ye  are  repaying  ? 
Or  are  ye  doing  anything  to  Me  ?  ^ 
Swiftly,  speedily  will  I  return  your  deed  on  your 

head, 
Who  have  taken  My  silver  and  My  gold. 
And  My  goodly  jewels  ye  have  brought  into  your 

palaces. 
The  sons  of  Judah  and  the  sons  of  ferusalem  have 

ye  sold  to  the  sons  of  the  Greeks, 
In  order  that  ye  might  set  them  as  far  as  possible 

from  their  own  border. 
Lo  I  I  will  stir  them  up  from  the  place  to  which  ye 

have  sold  them. 
And  I  will  return  your  deed  upon  your  head. 
I  will  sell  your  sons  and  your  daughters  into  the 

hands  of  the  sons  of  Judah, 
And  they  shall  sell  them  to  the  Shebans,^ 
To  a  nation  far  off;  for  Jehovah  hath  spoken. 


'  See  above,  Obadiah  ii  and  Nahum  iii.  lo. 
2  njin.     Oort  suggests  jITDn,  for  food. 

^  Geliloth,  the  plural  feminine  of  Galilee— the  circuit  (of  the  Gen- 
tiles).    Hist.  Geog.,  p.  413. 

*  Scil.  that  I  must  repay. 

*  LXX.  they  shall  give  them  into  captivity. 


Joeliii.]        THE  JUDGMENT  OF  THE  HEATHEN  435 

Proclaim  this  among  the  heathen^  hallow  a  war, 
Wake   up   the   warriors,    let   all   the  fighting-men 

muster  and  go  up} 
Beat  your  ploughshares  into  swords, 
And  your  pruning -hooks  into  lances. 
Let  the  iveakling  say,  I  am  strong. 
.  .  .  '^  and  come,  all  ye  nations  round  about, 
And  gather  yourselves  together. 
Thither  bring  down  Thy  warriors,  Jehovah. 
Let  the  heathen  be  roused, 
And  come  up  to  the  Vale  of  Jehoshaphat, 
For  there  will  I  sit  to  judge  all  the  nations  round 

about. 
Put  in  the  sickle^  for  ripe  is  the  harvest. 
Come,  get  you  down;  for  the  press  is  fidl. 
The  vats  overflow,  great  is  their  wickedness. 
Multitudes,  multitudes  in  the  Vale  of  Decision  ! 
For  near  is  JehovaHs  day  in  the  Vale  of  Decision. 
Sun  and  moon  have  turned  black, 
And  the  stars  withdrawn  their  shining. 
Jehovah  thunders  from  Zion, 
And  from  Jerusalem  gives  ^  forth  His  voice : 
Heaven  and  earth  do  quake. 
But  Jehovah  is  a  refuge  to  His  people, 
And  for  a  fortress  to  the  sons  of  Israel. 
And  ye  shall  know  that  I  am  Jehovah  your  God, 
Who  dwell  in  Zion,  the  mount  of  My  holiness  ; 
And  Jerusalem  shall  be  holy, 
Strangers  shall  not  pass  through  her  again. 

'  Technical  use  of  TOV,  to  go  up  to  war. 

^  \^*\V,  not  found  elsewhere,  but  supposed  to  mean  gather.  Cf. 
Zeph.  ii.  I.     Others  read  IJJ'in,  hasten  (Driver) ;  Wellhausen  my. 

^  /HD,  only  here  and  in  Jer.  1.  16:  other  Heb.  word  for  sickle 
hermesh  (Deut.  xvi.  9,  xxiii.  26).  *  Driver,  future. 


436  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

And  it  shall  be  on  that  day 

The  mountains  shall  drop  sweet  wine, 

And  the  hills  be  liquid  with  milk, 

And  all  the  channels  ofjudah  flow  with  water; 

A  fountain  shall  spring  from  the  house  of  Jehovah, 

And  shall  water  the  Wady  of  Shittim} 

Egypt  shall  be  desolation, 

And  Edom  desert-land, 

For  the  outrage  done  to  the  children  ofjudah. 

Because  they  shed  innocent  blood  in  their  land. 

Judah  shall  abide  peopled  for  ever, 

And  Jerusalem  for  generation  upon  generation. 

And  I  will  declare  innocent  their  blood ^'  ivhich  I  have 

not  declared  innocent. 
By  ^  Jehovah  who  dwelleth  in  Zion. 


'  Not  the  well-known  scene  of  early  Israel's  camp  across  Jordan, 
but  it  must  be  some  dry  and  desert  valley  near  Jerusalem  (so  most 
comm.).  Nowack  thinks  of  the  Wadi  el  Sant  on  the  way  to  Askalon, 
but  this  did  not  need  watering  and  is  called  the  Vale  of  Elah. 

^  Merx  applies  this  to  the  Jews  of  the  Messianic  era.  LXX.  read 
€/c^7?r^(Tw  =  "TlOp^l.     So  Syr.    Cf.  2  Kings  ix.  7. 

Steiner  :  Shall  I  leave  their  blood  unpunished  ?  I  will  not  leave  it 
unpunished.  Nowack  deems  this  to  be  unlikely,  and  suggests,  /  will 
avenge  their  blood  ;  I  will  not  leave  unpunished  the  shedders  of  it. 

"  ticb.  construction  is  found  also  in  Hosea  xii.  5. 


INTRODUCTION  TO   THE  PROPHETS  OF 
THE   GRECIAN  PERIOD 

(331 B.C.) 


437 


CHAPTER   XXXI 

ISRAEL  AND   THE  GREEKS 

APART  from  the  author  of  the  tenth  chapter  of 
Genesis,  who  defines  Javan  or  Greece  as  the 
father  of  Ehshah  and  Tarshish,  of  Kittim  or  Cyprus 
and  Rodanim  or  Rhodes/  the  first  Hebrew  writer 
who  mentions  the  Greeks  is  Ezekiel,^  c.  580  B.C.  He 
describes  them  as  engaged  in  commerce  with  the 
Phoenicians,  who  bought  slaves  from  them.  Even 
while  Ezekiel  wrote  in  Babylonia,  the  Babylonians 
were  in  touch  with  the  Ionian  Greeks  through  the 
Lydians."  The  latter  were  overthrown  by  Cyrus  about 
545,  and  by  the  beginning  of  the  next  century  the 
Persian  lords  of  Israel  were  in  close  struggle  with  the 
Greeks  for  the  supremacy  of  the  world,  and  had  vir- 
tually been  defeated  so  far  as  concerned  Europe,  the 
west  of  Asia  Minor,  and  the  sovereignty  of  the  Medi- 
terranean and  Black  Seas.  In  460  Athens  sent  an 
expedition  to  Egypt  to  assist  a  revolt  against  Persia, 
and  even    before   that  Greek   fleets    had    scoured   the 


•  Gen.  X.  2,  4.  «<),  Javan,  is  lafw?',  or  lacov,  the  older  form  of  the 
name  of  the  lonians,  the  first  of  the  Greek  race  with  whom  Eastern 
peoples  came  into  contact.  They  are  perhaps  named  on  the  Tell- 
el-Amarna  tablets  as  "Yivana,"  serving  "in  the  country  of  Tyre" 
(c.  1400  B.C.) ;  and  on  an  inscription  of  Sargon  (c.  709)  Cyprus  is 
called  Yavanu.  ^  xxvii.  13. 

^  Isaiah  xl. — Ixvi.  (Expositor's  Bible),  108  f. 
439 


440  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Levant  and  Greek  soldiers,  though  in  the  pay  of 
Persia,  had  trodden  the  soil  of  Syria.  Still  Joel, 
writing  towards  400  B.C.,  mentions  Greece  ^  only  as 
a  market  to  which  the  Phoenicians  carried  Jewish 
slaves ;  and  in  a  prophecy  which  some  take  to  be 
contemporary  with  Joel,  Isaiah  Ixvi.,  the  coasts  of 
Greece  are  among  the  most  distant  of  Gentile  lands.^ 
In  401  the  younger  Cyrus  brought  to  the  Euphrates 
to  fight  against  Artaxerxes  Mnemon  the  ten  thousand 
Greeks  whom,  after  the  battle  of  Cunaxa,  Xenophon 
led  north  to  the  Black  Sea.  For  nearly  seventy  years 
thereafter  Athenian  trade  slowly  spread  eastward,  but 
nothing  was  yet  done  by  Greece  to  advertise  her  to 
the  peoples  of  Asia  as  a  claimant  for  the  world's  throne. 
Then  suddenly  in  334  Alexander  of  Macedon  crossed 
the  Hellespont,  spent  a  year  in  the  conquest  of  Asia 
Minor,  defeated  Darius  at  Issusin  332,  took  Damascus, 
Tyre  and  Gaza,  overran  the  Delta  and  founded  Alex- 

^  iii.  6  (Eng. ;  iv.  6  Heb.). 

^  The  sense  of  distance  between  the  two  peoples  was  mutual. 
Writing  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  Herodotus  has  heard 
of  the  Jews  only  as  a  people  that  practise  circumcision  and  were 
defeated  by  Pharaoh  Necho  at  Megiddo  (II.  104,  159;  on  the  latter 
passage  see  Hist.  Geog.,  p.  405  n.).  He  does  not  even  know  them  by 
name.  The  fragment  of  Choerilos  of  Samos,  from  the  end  of  the 
fifth  century,  which  Josephus  cites  {Contra  Apionem,  I.  22)  as  a 
reference  to  the  Jews,  is  probably  of  a  people  in  Asia  Minor.  Even 
in  the  last  half  of  the  fourth  century  and  before  Alexander's  cam- 
paigns, Aristotle  knows  of  the  Dead  Sea  only  by  a  vague  report 
{Meteor.,  II.  iii.  39).  His  pupil  Theophrastus  {d.  287)  names  and 
describes  the  Jews  (Porphyr.  de  Abstinentia,  II.  26;  Eusebius,  Pr^/ar. 
Evang.f  IX.  2:  cf.  Josephus,  C.  Apion.,  I.  22);  and  another  pupil, 
Clearchus  of  Soli,  records  the  mention  by  Aristotle  of  a  travelled  Jew 
of  Coele-Syria,  but  "  Greek  in  soul  as  in  tongue,"  whom  the  great 
philosopher  had  met,  and  learned  from  him  that  the  Jews  were 
descended  from  the  philosophers  of  India  (quoted  by  Josephus, 
C.  Apion.,  I.  22). 


ISRAEL  AND   THE   GREEKS  441 


andria.  In  331  he  marched  back  over  Syria,  crossed 
the  Euphrates,  overthrew  the  Persian  Empire  on  the 
field  of  Arbela,  and  for  the  next  seven  years  till  his 
death  in  324  extended  his  conquests  to  the  Oxus  and 
the  Indus.  The  story,  that  on  his  second  passage 
of  Syria  Alexander  visited  Jerusalem,^  is  probably 
false.  But  he  must  have  encamped  repeatedly  within 
forty  miles  of  it,  and  he  visited  Samaria.^  It  is  im- 
possible that  he  received  no  embassy  from  a  people 
who  had  not  known  political  independence  for  centuries 
and  must  have  been  only  too  ready  to  come  to  terms 
with  the  new  lord  of  the  world.  Alexander  left  behind 
him  colonies  of  his  veterans,  both  to  the  east  and 
west  of  the  Jordan,  and  in  his  wake  there  poured  into 
all  the  cities  of  the  Syrian  seaboard  a  considerable 
volume  of  Greek  immigration.^  It  is  from  this  time 
onward  that  we  find  in  Greek  writers  the  earliest 
mention  of  the  Jews  by  name.  Theophrastus  and 
Clearchus  of  Soli,  disciples  of  Aristotle,  both  speak 
of  them  ;  but  while  the  former  gives  evidence  of  some 
knowledge  of  their  habits,  the  latter  reports  that  in 
the  perspective  of  his  great  master  they  had  been  so 
distant  and  vague  as  to  be  confounded  with  the 
Brahmins  of  India,  a  confusion  which  long  survived 
among  the  Greeks.^ 

Alexander's  death  delivered  his  empire  to  the 
ambitions  of  his  generals,  of  whom  four  contested  for 
the  mastery  of  Asia  and  Egypt — Antigonus,  Ptolemy, 
Lysimachus  and  Seleucus.  Of  these  Ptolemy  and 
Seleucus  emerged  victorious,  the  one  in  possession  of 
Egypt,  the  other  of  Northern  Syria   and   the   rest  of 


»  Jos.,  XI.  Anit.  iv.  5.  ^  ///^^^  Geog.,  pp.  593  f. 

^  Hist.  Geog.,  p.  347.  *  See  above,  p.  440,  n.  2. 


442  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Asia.  Palestine  lay  between  them,  and  both  in  the 
wars  which  led  to  the  establishment  of  the  two 
kingdoms  and  in  those  which  for  centuries  followed, 
Palestine  became  the  battle-field  of  the  Greeks. 

Ptolemy  gained  Egypt  within  two  years  of  Alex- 
ander's death,  and  from  its  definite  and  strongly  en- 
trenched territory  he  had  by  320  conquered  Syria  and 
Cyprus.  In  315  or  314  Syria  was  taken  from  him  by 
Antigonus,  who  also  expelled  Seleucus  from  Babylon. 
Seleucus  fled  to  Egypt  and  stirred  up  Ptolemy  to 
the  reconquest  of  Syria.  In  312  Ptolemy  defeated 
Demetrius,  the  general  of  Antigonus,  at  Gaza,  but  the 
next  year  was  driven  back  into  Egypt  by  Antigonus 
himself.  Meanwhile  Seleucus  regained  Babylon.^  In 
311  the  three  made  peace  with  each  other,  but 
Antigonus  retained  Syria.  In  306  they  assumed  the 
title  of  kings,  and  in  the  same  year  renewed  their 
quarrel.  After  a  naval  battle  Antigonus  wrested  Cyprus 
from  Ptolemy,  but  in  301  he  was  defeated  and  slain 
by  Seleucus  and  Lysimachus  at  the  battle  of  Ipsus  in 
Phrygia.  His  son  Demetrius  retained  Cyprus  and 
part  of  the  Phoenician  coast  till  287,  when  he  was 
forced  to  yield  them  to  Seleucus,  who  had  moved  the 
centre  of  his  power  from  Babylon  to  the  new  Antioch 
on  the  Orontes,  with  a  seaport  at  Seleucia.  Meanwhile 
in  301  Ptolemy  had  regained  what  the  Greeks  then 
knew  as  Coele-Syria,  that  is  all  Syria  to  the  south  of 
Lebanon  except  the  Phoenician  coast.^  Damascus 
belonged  to  Seleucus.  But  Ptolemy  was  not  allowed 
to  retain  Palestine  in  peace,  for  in  297  Demetrius 
appears   to  have  invaded  it,  and  Seleucus,   especially 


Hence  the  Seleucid  era  dates  from  312. 
Hist.  Geog.,  538. 


ISRAEL  AND   THE  GREEKS  443 

after  his  marriage  with  Stratonike,  the  daughter  of 
Demetrius,  never  wholly  resigned  his  claims  to  it.^ 
Ptolemy,  however,  established  a  hold  upon  the  land, 
which  continued  practically  unbroken  for  a  century, 
and  yet  during  all  that  time  had  to  be  maintained  by 
frequent  wars,  in  the  course  of  which  the  land  itself 
must  have  severely  suffered  (264 — 248). 

Therefore,  as  in  the  days  of  their  earliest  prophets, 
the  people  of  Israel  once  more  lay  between  two  rival 
empires.  And  as  Hosea  and  Isaiah  pictured  them  in 
the  eighth  century,  the  possible  prey  either  of  Egypt 
or  Assyria,  so  now  in  these  last  years  of  the  fourth 
they  were  tossed  between  Ptolemy  and  Antigonus, 
and  in  the  opening  years  of  the  third  were  equally 
wooed  by  Ptolemy  and  Seleucus.  Upon  this  new 
alternative  of  tyranny  the  Jews  appear  to  have  bestowed 
the  actual  names  of  their  old  oppressors.  Ptolemy  was 
Egypt  to  them ;  Seleucus,  with  one  of  his  capitals 
at  Babylon,  was  still  Assyria,  from  which  came  in 
time  the  abbreviated  Greek  form  of  Syria.^  But, 
unlike  the  ancient  empires,  these  new  rival  lords 
were  of  one  race.  Whether  the  tyranny  came  from 
Asia  or  Africa,  its  quality  was  Greek ;  and  in  the 
sons  of  Javan  the  Jews  saw  the  successors  of  those 
world-powers    of    Egypt,    Assyria   and    Babylonia,    in 


»  Cf.  Ewald,  Hist.  (Eng.  Ed.),  V.  226  f. 

^  Asshur  or  Assyria  fell  in  607  (as  we  have  seen),  but  her  name 
was  transferred  to  her  successor  Babylon  (2  Kings  xxiii.  29 ; 
Jer.  ii.  18;  Lam.  v.  6),  and  even  to  Babylon's  successor  Persia 
(Ezra  vi.  22).  When  Seleucus  secured  what  was  virtually  the  old 
Assyrian  Empire  with  large  extensions  to  Phrygia  on  the  west  and 
the  Punjaub  on  the  east,  the  name  would  naturally  be  continued  to  his 
dominion,  especially  as  his  first  capital  was  Babylon,  from  his  capture 
of  which  in  312  the  Seleucid  era  took  its  start.  There  is  actual 
record   of  this,     Brugsch   {Gesch.  Aeg.,  p.   218)  states  that   in  the 


444  THE   TWELVE   PROPHETS 

which  had  been  concentrated  against  themselves  the 
whole  force  of  the  heathen  world.  Our  records  of 
the  times  are  fragmentary,  but  though  Alexander 
spared  the  Jews  it  appears  that  they  had  not  long 
to  wait  before  feeling  the  force  of  Greek  arms. 
Josephus  quotes^  from  Agatharchides  of  Cnidos 
(i8o — 145  B.C.)  to  the  effect  that  Ptolemy  I.  surprised 
Jerusalem  on  a  Sabbath  day  and  easily  took  it;  and 
he  adds  that  at  the  same  time  he  took  a  great  many 
captives  from  the  hill-country  of  Judaea,  from  Jerusalem 
and  from  Samaria,  and  led  them  into  Egypt.  Whether 
this  was  in  320  or  312  or  301^  we  cannot  tell.  It 
is  possible  that  the  Jews  suffered  in  each  of  these 
Egyptian  invasions  of  Syria,  as  well  as  during  the 
southward  marches  of  Demetrius  and  Antigonus.  The 
later  policy,  both  of  the  Ptolemies,  who  were  their 
lords,  and  of  the  Seleucids,  was  for  a  long  time  ex- 
ceedingly friendly  to  Israel.  Their  sufferings  from 
the  Greeks  were  therefore  probably  over  by  280, 
although  they  cannot  have  remained  unscathed  by 
the  wars  between  264  and  248. 

The  Greek  invasion,  however,  was  not  like  the 
Assyrian  and  Babylonian,  of  arms  alone  ;  but  of  a 
force  of  intellect  and  culture  far  surpassing  even  the 
influences  which  the  Persians  had  impressed  upon  the 

hieroglyphic  inscriptions  of  the  Ptolemaean  period  the  kingdom  of 
the  Seleucids  is  called  Asharu  (cf.  Stade,  Z.A.T.TV.,  1882,  p.  292, 
and  Cheyne,  Book  of  Psalms,  p.  253,  and  Introd.  to  Book  of  Isaiah, 
p.  107,  n.  3).  As  the  Seleucid  kingdom  shrank  to  this  side  of  the 
Euphrates,  it  drew  the  name  Assyria  with  it.  But  in  Greek  mouths 
this  had  long  ago  (cf.  Herod.)  been  shortened  to  Syria  :  Herodotus 
also  appears  to  have  applied  it  only  to  the  west  of  the  Euphrates. 
Cf.  Hist.  Geog.,  pp.  3  f. 

'  XII.  Antt.  i. :  cf.  Con.  Apion.,  I.  22. 

^  See  above,  p.  442.  Eusebius,  Chrott.Arni.,  II.  225,  assigns  it  10320. 


ISRAEL  AND   THE   GREEKS  445 


religion  and  mental  attitude  of  Israel.  The  ancient 
empires  had  transplanted  the  nations  of  Palestine  to 
Assyria  and  Babylonia.  The  Greeks  did  not  need 
to  remove  them  to  Greece  ;  for  they  brought  Greece 
to  Palestine.  ^'  The  Orient,"  says  Wellhausen,  ''  became 
their  America."  They  poured  into  Syria,  infecting, 
exploiting,  assimilating  its  peoples.  With  dismay  the 
Jews  must  have  seen  themselves  surrounded  by  new 
Greek  colonies,  and  still  more  by  the  old  Palestinian  cities 
Hellenised  in  polity  and  religion.  The  Greek  translator 
of  Isaiah  ix.  1 2  renders  Philistines  by  Hellenes.  Israel 
were  compassed  and  penetrated  by  influences  as  subtle 
as  the  atmosphere  :  not  as  of  old  uprooted  from  their 
fatherland,  but  with  their  fatherland  itself  infected  and 
altered  beyond  all  powers  of  resistance.  The  full 
alarm  of  this,  however,  was  not  felt  for  many  years 
to  come.  It  was  at  first  the  policy  both  of  the 
Seleucids  and  the  Ptolemies  to  flatter  and  foster  the 
Jews.  They  encouraged  them  to  feel  that  their  religion 
had  its  own  place  beside  the  forces  of  Greece,  and  was 
worth  interpreting  to  the  world.  Seleucus  I.  gave  to 
Jews  the  rights  of  citizenship  in  Asia  Minor  and 
Northern  Syria ;  and  Ptolemy  I.  atoned  for  his  previous 
violence  by  granting  them  the  same  in  Alexandria. 
In  the  matter  of  the  consequent  tribute  Seleucus 
respected  their  religious  scruples ;  and  it  was  under 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus  (283 — 247),  if  not  at  his  in- 
stigation, that  the  Law  was  first  translated  into  Greek. 

To  prophecy,  before  it  finally  expired,  there  was 
granted  the  opportunity  to  assert  itself,  upon  at  least 
the  threshold  of  this  new  era  of  Israel's  history. 

We  have  from  the  first  half-century  of  the  era 
perhaps    three   or    four,   but   certainly   two,   prophetic 


446  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

pieces.  By  many  critics  Isaiah  xxiv. — xxvii.  are' 
assigned  to  the  years  immediately  following  Alexander's 
campaigns.  Others  assign  Isaiah  xix.  16-25  ^o  the  last 
years  of  Ptolemy  I.^  And  of  our  Book  of  the  Twelve 
Prophets,  the  chapters  attached  to  the  genuine  pro- 
phecies of  Zechariah,  or  chaps,  ix. — xiv.  of  his  book, 
most  probably  fall  to  be  dated  from  the  contests  of 
Syria  and  Egypt  for  the  possession  of  Palestine; 
while  somewhere  about  300  is  the  most  likely  date 
for  the  Book  of  Jonah. 

In  '*  Zech."  ix. — xiv.  we  see  prophecy  perhaps  at 
its  lowest  ebb.  The  clash  with  the  new  foes  produces 
a  really  terrible  thirst  for  the  blood  of  the  heathen : 
there  are  schisms  and  intrigues  within  Israel  which 
in  our  ignorance  of  her  history  during  this  time  it  is 
not  possible  for  us  to  follow :  the  brighter  gleams, 
which  contrast  so  forcibly  with  the  rest,  may  be  more 
ancient  oracles  that  the  writer  has  incorporated  with 
his  own  stern  and  dark  Apocalypse. 

In  the  Book  of  Jonah,  on  the  other  hand,  we  find 
a  spirit  and  a  style  in  which  prophecy  may  not 
unjustly  be  said  to  have  given  its  highest  utterance. 
And  this  alone  suffices,  in  our  uncertainty  as  to  the 
exact  date  of  the  book,  to  take  it  last  of  all  our 
Twelve.  For  ^*  in  this  book,"  as  Cornill  has  finely 
said,  "  the  prophecy  of  Israel  quits  the  scene  of  battle 
as  victor,  and  as  victor  in  its  severest  struggle — that 
against  self." 

'  Cheyne,  Introd.  to  Book  of  Isaiah,  p.  105. 


ZECHARIAH'' 

{IX.- XIV.) 


447 


Loy  thy  King  Cometh  to  thee,  vindicated  and  victorious,  meek  and 
riding  on  an  ass,  and  on  a  colt,  the  foal  of  an  ass. 

Up,  Sword,  against  My  Shepherd  !  .  .  .  Smite  the  Shepherd,  that  the 
sheep  may  be  scattered  / 

And  I  will  pour  upon  the  house  of  David  and  upon  all  the  inhabitants 
of  Jerusalem  the  spirit  of  grace  and  of  supplication,  and  they  shall  look 
to  Him  whom  they  have  pierced ;  and  they  shall  lament  for  Him,  as  zvith 
lamentation  for  an  only  son,  and  bitterly  grieve  for  Him,  as  with  grief 
for  a  first-born. 


448 


CHAPTER   XXXII 

CHAPTERS  IX.— XIV.   OF  ''  ZECHARIAH 

WE  saw  that  the  first  eight  chapters  of  the  Book 
of  Zechariah  were,  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  verses,  from  the  prophet  himself.  No  one  has 
ever  doubted  this.  No  one  could  doubt  it :  they  are 
obviously  from  the  years  of  the  building  of  the  Temple, 
520 — 516  B.C.  They  hang  together  with  a  consistency 
exhibited  by  few  other  groups  of  chapters  in  the  Old 
Testament. 

But  when  we  pass  into  chap.  ix.  we  find  ourselves 
in  circumstances  and  an  atmosphere  altogether  different. 
Israel  is  upon  a  new  situation  of  history,  and  the  words 
addressed  to  her  breathe  another  spirit.  There  is  not 
the  faintest  allusion  to  the  building  of  the  Temple — 
the  subject  from  which  all  the  first  eight  chapters 
depend.  There  is  not  a  single  certain  reflection  of 
the  Persian  period,  under  the  shadow  of  which  the 
first  eight  chapters  were  all  evidently  written.  We 
have  names  of  heathen  powers  mentioned,  which  not 
only  do  not  occur  in  the  first  eight  chapters,  but  of 
which  it  is  not  possible  to  think  that  they  had  any 
interest  whatever  for  Israel  between  520  and  516: 
Damascus,  Hadrach,  Hamath,  Assyria,  Egypt  and 
Greece.  The  peace,  and  the  love  of  peace,  in  which 
Zechariah  wrote,  has  disappeared.^     Nearly  everything 

'  Except  in  the  passage  ix.   10-12,  which  seems  strangely  out  of 
place  in  the  rest  of  ix. — xiv. 

VOL.  II.  449  29 


450  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

breathes  of  war  actual  or  imminent.     The  heathen  are 
spoken  of  with  a   ferocity  which   finds  few   parallels 
in  the  Old  Testament.     There  is  a  revelling  in   their 
blood,  of  which  the  student  of  the  authentic  prophecies 
of  Zechariah  will  at  once  perceive  that  gentle  lover  of 
peace  could  not  have  been  capable.     And  one  passage 
figures  the  imminence  of  a  thorough  judgment  upon 
Jerusalem,    very   different    from    Zechariah's    outlook 
upon  his  people's  future  from  the  eve  of  the  completion 
of  the  Temple.     It  is   not  surprising,   therefore,   that 
one  of  the  earliest  efforts  of  Old  Testament  criticism 
should  have  been  to  prove  another  author  than  Zech- 
ariah for  chaps,  ix. — xiv.  of  the  book  called  by  his  name. 
The  very  first  attempt   of  this  kind  was   made  so 
far  back  as  1632  by  the  Cambridge  theologian  Joseph 
Mede,^   who    was   moved    thereto    by    the    desire    to 
vindicate  the  correctness  of  St.  Matthew's  ascription  ^ 
of   "Zech."   xi.   13  to  the  prophet  Jeremiah.     Mede's 
effort    was    developed    by    other    English    exegetes. 
Hammond  assigned    chaps,   x. — xii.,    Bishop    Kidder^ 
and  William  Whiston,  the  translator  of  Josephus,  chaps, 
ix. — xiv.,  to  Jeremiah.     Archbishop  Newxome  ^  divided 
them,  and  sought  to  prove  that  while  chaps,  ix. — xi. 
must  have  been  written  before  721,  or  a  century  earlier 
than  Jeremiah,  because  of  the   heathen  powers   they 
name,  and   the   divisions  between  Judah   and    Israel, 
chaps,  xii. — xiv.  reflect  the  imminence  of  the  Fall  of 
Jerusalem.     In  1784  Fl u gge  ^  offered  independent  proof 

»   Works,  4th  ed.  1677,  pp.  786  ff.  (1632),  834.     Mede  died  1638. 

2  Matt,  xxvii,  9. 

*  Demonstration  of  the  Messias,  1700. 

■*  An  Attempt  towards  an  Improved  Version  of  the  Tivelve  Minor 
Prophets,  1785  (not  seen).     See  also  WMght  on  Archbishop  Seeker. 

^  Die  Weissagungen,  welche  bei  den  Schriften  des  Proph,  Sacharja 
beygebogen  sind,  iibersetst^  etc.,  Hamburg  (not  seen). 


CHAPTERS  IX.— XIV.   OF  '' ZECHARIAH"  451 

that  chaps,  ix. — xiv.  were  by  Jeremiah;  and  in  18 14 
Bertholdt  ^  suggested  that  chaps,  ix. — xi.  might  be  by 
Zechariah  the  contemporary  of  Isaiah,^  and  on  that 
account  attached  to  the  prophecies  of  his  younger 
namesake.  These  opinions  gave  the  trend  to  the 
main  volume  of  criticism,  which,  till  fifteen  years  ago, 
deemed  ^*  Zech."  ix. — xiv.  to  be  pre-exilic.  So  Hitzig, 
who  at  first  took  the  whole  to  be  from  one  hand,  but 
afterwards  placed  xii. — xiv.  by  a  different  author  under 
Manasseh.  So  Ewald,  Bleek,  Kuenen  (at  first),  Samuel 
Davidson,  Schrader,  Duhm  (in  1875),  and  more  recently 
Konig  and  Orelli,  who  assign  chaps,  ix. — xi.  to  the 
reign  of  Ahaz,  but  xii. — xiv.  to  the  eve  of  the  Fall  of 
Jerusalem,  or  even  a  little  later. 

Some  critics,  however,  remained  unmoved  by  the 
evidence  offered  for  a  pre-exilic  date.  They  pointed 
out  in  particular  that  the  geographical  references  were 
equally  suitable  to  the  centuries  after  the  Exile. 
Damascus,  Hadrach  and  Hamath,^  though  politically 
obsolete  by  720,  entered  history  again  with  the  cam- 
paigns of  Alexander  the  Great  in  332 — 331,  and  the 
establishment  of  the  Seleucid  kingdom  in  Northern 
Syria.^  Egypt  and  Assyria^  were  names  used  after 
the  Exile  for  the  kingdom  of  the  Ptolemies,  and  for 
those  powers  which  still  threatened  Israel  from  the 
north,  or  Assyrian  quarter.  Judah  and  Joseph  or 
Ephraim^  were  names  still  used  after  the  Exile  to 
express  the  whole  of  God's  Israel;  and  in  chaps, 
ix. — xiv.  they  are  presented,  not  divided  as  before  721, 
but  united.  None  of  the  chapters  give  a  hint  of  any 
king  in  Jerusalem  ;  and  all  of  them,  while  representing 

*  Einleitung  m  A.  u.  N.  T.  (not  seen).     *  See  above,  Chap.  XXXI. 
'  Isa.  viii.  2.     See  above,  p.  265.  *  x.  10. 

*  ix.  I.  ^  ix.  10,  13,  etc. 


452 


THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 


the  great  Exile  of  Judah  as  already  begun,  show  a 
certain  dependence  in  style  and  even  in  language  upon 
Jeremiah,  Ezekiel  and  Isaiah  xl. — Ixvi.  Moreover  the 
language  is  post-exilic,  sprinkled  with  Aramaisms  and 
with  other  words  and  phrases  used  only,  or  mainly, 
by  Hebrew  writers  from  Jeremiah  onwards. 

But  though  many  critics  judged  these  grounds  to  be 
sufficient  to  prove  the  post-exilic  origin  of  '' Zech." 
ix. — xiv.,  they  differed  as  to  the  author  and  exact  date 
of  these  chapters.  Conservatives  like  Hengstenberg,  ^ 
Delitzsch,  Keil,  Kohler  and  Pusey  used  the  evidence 
to  prove  the  authorship  of  Zechariah  himself  after  516, 
and  interpreted  the  references  to  the  Greek  period  as 
pure  prediction.  Pusey  says^  that  chaps,  ix. — xi. 
extend  from  the  completion  of  the  Temple  and  its 
deliverance  during  the  invasion  of  Alexander,  and 
from  the  victories  of  the  Maccabees,  to  the  rejection  of 
the  true  shepherd  and  the  curse  upon  the  false ;  and 
chaps,  xi. — xii.  "  from  a  future  repentance  for  the  death 
of  Christ  to  the  final  conversion  of  the  Jews  and 
Gentiles."  2 

But  on  the  same  grounds  Eichhorn^  saw  in  the 
chapters  not  a  prediction  but  a  reflection  of  the  Greek 
period.  He  assigned  chaps,  ix.  and  x.  to  an  author  in 
the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great ;  xi. — xiii.  6  he  placed 
a  little  later,  and  brought  down  xiii.  7 — xiv.  to  the 
Maccabean  period.  Bottcher^  placed  the  whole  in 
the  wars  of  Ptolemy  and  Seleucus  after  Alexander's 
death ;  and  Vatke,  who  had  at  first  selected  a  date  in 
the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  Longhand,  464—425,  finally 
decided  for  the  Maccabean  period,  i/off.*' 

>  Dan.  u.  Sacharja.  *  Einl.  in  the  beginning  of  the  century. 

2  Page  503.  '  Netie  Exeg.  krit.  Aehrenlese  z.  A.  T.,  1864. 

3  See  Addenda,  p.  462.    «  Einl,  1882,  p.  709. 


CHAPTERS  IX.— XIV.   OF  "ZECHARIAH"  453 

In  recent  times  the  most  thorough  examination  of 
the  chapters  has  been  that  by  Stade/  and  the  con- 
clusion he  comes  to  is  that  chaps,  ix. — xiv.  are  all  from 
one  author,  who  must  have  written  during  the  early 
wars  between  the  Ptolemies  and  Seleucids  about  280 
B.C.,  but  employed,  especially  in  chaps,  ix.,  x.,  an 
earlier  prophecy.  A  criticism  and  modification  of 
Stade's  theory  is  given  by  Kuenen.  He  allows  that 
the  present  form  of  chaps,  ix. — xiv.  must  be  of  post- 
exilic  origin  :  this  is  obvious  from  the  mention  of  the 
Greeks  as  a  world-power;  the  description  of  a  siege 
of  Jerusalem  by  all  the  heathen ;  the  way  in  which 
(chaps,  ix.  II  f,  but  especially  x.  6-9)  the  captivity  is 
presupposed,  if  not  of  all  Israel,  yet  of  Ephraim  ;  the 
fact  that  the  House  of  David  are  not  represented 
as  governing;  and  the  thoroughly  priestly  character 
of  all  the  chapters.  But  Kuenen  holds  that  an  ancient 
prophecy  of  the  eighth  century  underlies  chaps,  ix. — xi., 
xiii.  7-9,  in  which  several  actual  phrases  of  it  survive  ;  ^ 
and  that  in  their  present  form  xii. — xiv.  are  older 
than  ix. — xi.,  and  probably  by  a  contemporary  of  Joel, 
about  400  B.C. 

In  the  main  Cheyne,^  CornilV  Wildeboer^  and 
Staerk  ^  adhere  to  Stade's  conclusions.  Cheyne  proves 
the  unity  of  the  six  chapters  and  their  date  be/ore  the 
Maccabean  period.     Staerk  brings  down  xi.  4-17  and 

»  Z.A.T.W.,  1881,  1882.  See  further  proof  of  the  late  character 
of  language  and  style,  and  of  the  unity,  by  Eckardt,  Z,A,T,W,,  1893, 
pp.  76  ff. 

^  §  81,  n.  3,  10.     See  p.  457,  end  of  note  2. 

^  Jewish  Quart.  Review,  1889. 

*  Einl.* 

'  A.T.  Litt. 

^  Untersuchung  uber  die  Komposition  u.  Abfassungsseit  von  Zach. 
9-14,  etc.     Halle,  1891  (not  seen). 


454  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

xiii.  7-9  to  171  B.C.  Wellhausen  argues  for  the  unity, 
and  assigns  it  to  the  Maccabean  times.  Driver  judges 
ix. — xi.,  with  its  natural  continuation  xiii.  7-9,  as  not 
earUer  than  333  ;  and  the  rest  of  xii. — xiv.  as  certainly' 
post-exilic,  and  probably  from  432 — 300.  Rubinkam^ 
places  ix.  i-io  in  Alexander's  time,  the  rest  in  that  of 
the  Maccabees,  but  Zeydner^  all  of  it  to  the  latter. 
Kirkpatrick,^  after  showing  the  post-exilic  character  of 
all  the  chapters,  favours  assigning  ix. — xi.  to  a  different 
author  from  xii. — xiv.  Asserting  that  to  the  question  of 
the  exact  date  it  is  impossible  to  give  a  definite  answer, 
he  thinks  that  the  whole  may  be  with  considerable 
probability  assigned  to  the  first  sixty  or  seventy  years 
of  the  Exile,  and  is  therefore  in  its  proper  place 
between  Zechariah  and  "  Malachi."  The  reference  to 
the  sons  of  Javan  he  takes  to  be  a  gloss,  probably 
added  in  Maccabean  times.^ 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  catalogue  of  conclusions 
that  the  prevailing  trend  of  recent  criticism  has  been  to 
assign  "  Zech. "  ix. — xiv.  to  post-exilic  times,  and  to  a 
different  author  from  chaps,  i, — viii. ;  and  that  while 
a  few  critics  maintain  a  date  soon  after  the  Return,  the 
bulk  are  divided  between  the  years  following  Alexander's 
campaigns  and  the  time  of  the  Maccabean  struggles."'^ 

There  are,  in  fact,  in  recent  years  only  two  attempts 
to  support  the  conservative  position  of  Pusey  and 
Hengstenberg  that  the  whole  book  is  a  genuine  work 
of  Zechariah  the  son  of  Iddo.  One  of  these  is  by 
C.    H.    H.   Wright   in   his    Bampton   Lectures.      The 

'  1892  :  quoted  by  Wildeboer.         ^  1893  '  quoted  by  Wildeboer. 

^  Doctrine  of  the  Prophets,  438  ff.,  in  which  the  English  reader  will 
find  a  singularly  lucid  and  fair  treatment  of  the  question.  See,  too, 
Wright. 

*  Page  472,  Note  A.  \  Kautzsch— the  Greek  period. 


CHAPTERS  IX.— XIV,   OF  ''  ZECHARIAW  455 

Other  is  by  George  L.  Robinson,  now  Professor 
at  Toronto,  in  a  reprint  (1896)  from  the  American 
Journal  oj  Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures^  which 
offers  a  vakiable  history  of  the  discussion  of  the  whole 
question  from  the  days  of  Mede,  with  a  careful  argument 
of  all  the  evidence  on  both  sides.  The  very  original 
conclusion  is  reached  that  the  chapters  reflect  the 
history  of  the  years  518 — 516  B.C. 

In  discussing  the  question,  for  which  our  treatment 
of  other  prophets  has  left  us  too  little  space,  we  need 
not  open  that  part  of  it  which  lies  between  a  pre- 
exilic  and  a  post-exilic  date.  Recent  criticism  of  all 
schools  and  at  both  extremes  has  tended  to  establish 
the  latter  upon  reasons  which  we  have  already 
stated,^  and  for  further  details  of  which  the  student 
may  be  referred  to  Stade's  and  Eckardt's  investiga- 
tions in  the  Zeitschrift fiir  A.  T.  Wissenschaft  and  to 
Kirkpatrick's  impartial  summary.  There  remain  the 
questions  of  the  unity  of  chaps,  ix. — xiv.  ;  their  exact 
date  or  dates  after  the  Exile,  and  as  a  consequence 
of  this  their  relation  to  the  authentic  prophecies  of 
Zechariah  in  chaps,  i. — viii. 

On  the  question  of  unity  we  take  first  chaps,  ix. — xi., 
to  which  must  be  added  (as  by  most  critics  since 
Ewald)  xiii.  7-9,  which  has  got  out  of  its  place  as  the 
natural  continuation  and  conclusion  of  chap.  xi. 

Chap.  ix.  1-8  predicts  the  overthrow  of  heathen 
neighbours  of  Israel,  their  possession  by  Jehovah 
and  His  safeguard  of  Jerusalem.  Vv.  9-12  follow 
with  a  prediction  of  the  Messianic  King  as  the  Prince 
of  Peace  ;  but  then  come  vv.  13-17,  with  no  mention  of 
the  King,  but  Jehovah  appears  alone  as  the  hero  of 

^  Above,  pp.  451  f. 


456  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

His  people  against  the  Greeks,  and  there  is  indeed 
sufficiency  of  war  and  blood.  Chap.  x.  makes  a  new 
start:  the  people  are  warned  to  seek  their  blessings 
from  Jehovah,  and  not  from  Teraphim  and  diviners, 
whom  their  false  shepherds  follow.  Jehovah,  visiting 
His  flock,  shall  punish  these,  give  proper  rulers,  make 
the  people  strong  and  gather  in  their  exiles  to  fill 
Gilead  and  Lebanon.  Chap.  xi.  opens  with  a  burst 
of  war  on  Lebanon  and  Bashan  and  the  overthrow 
of  the  heathen  (vv.  1-3),  and  follows  with  an  allegory, 
in  which  the  prophet  first  takes  charge  from  Jehovah 
of  the  people  as  their  shepherd,  but  is  contemptuously 
treated  by  them  (4-14),  and  then  taking  the  guise 
of  an  evil  shepherd  represents  what  they  must  suffer 
from  their  next  ruler  (15-17).  This  tyrant,  however, 
shall  receive  punishment,  two-thirds  of  the  nation  shall 
be  scattered,  but  the  rest,  further  purified,  shall  be 
God's  own  people  (xiii.  7-9). 

In  the  course  of  this  prophesying  there  is  no  conclu- 
sive proof  of  a  double  authorship.  The  only  passage 
which  offers  strong  evidence  for  this  is  chap.  ix. 
The  verses  predicting  the  peaceful  coming  of  Messiah 
(9-12)  do  not  accord  in  spirit  with  those  which  follow 
predicting  the  appearance  of  Jehovah  with  war  and 
great  shedding  of  blood.  Nor  is  the  difference 
altogether  explained,  as  Stade  thinks,  by  the  similar 
order  of  events  in  chap,  x.,  where  Judah  and  Joseph 
are  first  represented  as  saved  and  brought  back  in 
ver.  6,  and  then  we  have  the  process  of  their  redemp- 
tion and  return  described  in  vv.  7  ff".  Why  did  the 
same  writer  give  statements  of  such  very  different 
temper  as  chap.  ix.  9-12  and  13-17?  Or,  if  these 
be  from  different  hands,  why  were  they  ever  put 
together  ?     Otherwise  there  is  no  reason  for  breaking 


CHAPTERS  IX.— XIV.   OF  '' ZECHARIAIT'  457 

up  chaps,  ix. — xi.,  xiii.  7-9.  Rubinkam,  who  separates 
ix.  I- 10  by  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  fi^om  the  rest ; 
Bleek,  who  divides  ix.  from  x. ;  and  Staerk,  who 
separates  ix. — xi.  3  from  the  rest,  have  been  answered 
by  Robinson  and  others.^  On  the  ground  of  language, 
grammar  and  syntax,  Eckardt  has  fully  proved  that 
ix. — xi.  are  from  the  same  author  of  a  late  date,  who, 
however,  may  have  occasionally  followed  earlier  models 
and  even  introduced  their  very  phrases.^ 

More  supporters  have  been  found  for  a  division  of 
authorship  between  chaps,  ix. — xi.,  xiii.  7-9,  and  chaps, 
xii. — xiv.  (less  xiii.  7-9).  Chap.  xii.  opens  with  a  title 
of  its  own.  A  strange  element  is  introduced  into  the 
historical  relation.  Jerusalem  is  assaulted  not  by  the 
heathen  only,  but  by  Judah,  who,  however,  turns  on 
finding  that  Jehovah  fights  for  Jerusalem,  and  is  saved 
by  Jehovah  before  Jerusalem  in  order  that  the  latter 
may  not  boast  over  it  (xii.  1-9).  A  spirit  of  grace  and 
supplication  is  poured  upon  the  guilty  city,  a  fountain 
opened  for  uncleanness,  idols  abolished,  and  the 
prophets,  who  are  put  on  a  level  with  them,  abolished 
too,  where  they  do  not  disown  their  profession  (xii.  10 
— xiii.  6).  Another  assault  of  the  heathen  on  Jerusalem 
is  described,  half  of  the  people  being  taken  captive. 
Jehovah  appears,  and  by  a  great  earthquake  saves  the 
rest.  The  land  is  transformed.  And  then  the  prophet 
goes  back  to  the  defeat  of  the  heathen  assault  on  the 
city,  in  which  Judah  is  again  described  as  taking  part  ; 
and  the  surviving  heathen  are  converted,  or,  if  they 
refuse   to   be,    punished   by   the    withholding  of  rain. 

'  Robinson,  pp.  76  fF. 

2  Z.A.T.W.^  1893,  76 ff.  See  also  the  summaries  of  linguistic 
evidence  given  by  Robinson,  Kuenen  finds  in  ix. — xi.  the  following 
pre-exilic  elements  :  ix.  1-5,  8-10,  13a  (?) ;  x.  if.,  10  f.;  xi.  4-14  or  17. 


458  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Jerusalem  is  holy  to  the  Lord  (xiv.).  In  all  this  there  is 
more  that  differs  from  chaps,  ix. — xi.,  xiii.  7-9,  than  the 
strange  opposition  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem.  Ephraim, 
or  Joseph,  is  not  mentioned,  nor  any  return  of  exiles, 
nor  punishment  of  the  shepherds,  nor  coming  of  the 
Messiah/  the  latter's  place  being  taken  by  Jehovah. 
But  in  answer  to  this  we  may  remember  that  the 
Messiah,  after  being  described  in  ix.  9-12,  is  immedi- 
ately lost  behind  the  warhke  coming  of  Jehovah.  Both 
sections  speak  of  idolatry,  and  of  the  heathen,  their 
punishment  and  conversion,  and  do  so  in  the  same 
apocalyptic  style.  Nor  does  the  language  of  the  two 
differ  in  any  decisive  fashion.  On  the  contrary,  as 
Eckardt^  and  Kuiper  have  shown,  the  language  is 
on  the  whole  an  argument  for  unity  of  authorship.^ 
There  is,  then,  nothing  conclusive  against  the  position, 
which  Stade  so  clearly  laid  down  and  strongly  fortified, 
that  chaps,  ix. — xiv.  are  from  the  same  hand,  although, 
as  he  admits,  this  cannot  be  proved  with  absolute 
certainty.  So  also  Cheyne  :  ''With  perhaps  one  or  two 
exceptions,  chaps,  ix. — xi.  and  xii. — xiv.  are  so  closely 
welded  together  that  even  analysis  is  impossible."  ^ 

The  next  questions  we  have  to  decide  are  whether 
chaps,  ix. — xiv.  offer  any  evidence  of  being  by  Zechariah, 
the  author  of  chaps,  i. — viii.,  and  if  not  to  what  other 
post-exilic  date  they  may  be  assigned. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  in  language  and  in  style 
the  two  parts  of  the  Book  of  Zechariah  have  features 
in  common.  But  that  these  have  been  exaggerated  by 
defenders  of  the  unity  there  can  be  no  doubt.     We 

*  Kuenen. 

^  See  above,  p.  453,  n.  i. 
^  See  also  Robinson. 

*  Jewish  Quarterly  Review,  1889,  p.  81. 


CHAPTERS  IX.— XIV.   OF  ''ZECHARIAH"  459 

cannot  infer  anything  from  the  fact  ^  that  both  parts 
contain  specimens  of  clumsy  diction,  of  the  repetition 
of  the  same  word,  of  phrases  (not  the  same  phrases) 
unused  by  other  writers ;  ^  or  that  each  is  lavish  in 
vocatives ;  or  that  each  is  variable  in  his  spelling. 
Resemblances  of  that  kind  they  share  with  other  books  : 
some  of  them  are  due  to  the  fact  that  both  sections  are 
post-exilic.  On  the  other  hand,  as  Eckardt  has  clearly 
shown,  there  exists  a  still  greater  number  of  differ- 
ences between  the  two  sections,  both  in  language  and 
in  style.^  Not  only  do  characteristic  words  occur  in 
each  which  are  not  found  in  the  other,  not  only  do 
chaps,  ix. — xiv.  contain  many  more  Aramaisms  than 
chaps,  i.— viii.,  and  therefore  symptoms  of  a  later  date ; 
but  both  parts  use  the  same  words  with  more  or  less 
different  meanings,  and  apply  different  terms  to  the 
same  objects.  There  are  also  differences  of  grammar, 
of  favourite  formulas,  and  of  other  features  of  the 
phraseology,  which,  if  there  be  any  need,  complete 
the  proof  of  a  distinction  of  dialect  so  great  as  to 
require  to  account  for  it  distinction  of  authorship. 

The  same  impression  is  sustained  by  the  contrast  of 
the  historical  circumstances  reflected  in  each  of  the  two 
sections.  Zech.  i. — viii.  were  written  during  the  build- 
ing of  the  Temple.  There  is  no  echo  of  the  latter  in 
"Zech."  ix. — xiv.  Zech.  i. — viii.  picture  the  whole  earth 
as  at  peace,  which  was  true  at  least  of  all  Syria  :  they 
portend  no  danger  to  Jerusalem  from  the  heathen,  but 
describe  her  peace  and  fruitful  expansion  in  terms 
most  suitable  to  the  circumstances  imposed  upon  her 


'  As  Robinson,  e.g.,  does. 

"^  E.g.  holy  land,  ii.  16,  and  Mount  of  Olives,  xiv.  4. 

^  Op,  cit,  103-109  :  cf.  Driver,  Introd^^  354. 


46o  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

by  the  solid  and  clement  policy  of  the  earlier  Persian 
kings.  This  is  all  changed  in  ^'  Zech."  ix. — xiv.  The 
nations  are  restless ;  a  siege  of  Jerusalem  is  imminent, 
and  her  salvation  is  to  be  assured  only  by  much  war 
and  a  terrible  shedding  of  blood.  We  know  exactly 
how  Israel  fared  and  felt  in  the  early  sections  of  the 
Persian  period  :  her  interests  in  the  poHtics  of  the 
world,  her  feelings  towards  her  governors  and  her 
whole  attitude  to  the  heathen  were  not  at  that  time 
those  which  are  reflected  in  **Zech."  ix. — xiv. 

Nor  is  there  any  such  resemblance  between  the 
religious  principles  of  the  two  sections  of  the  Book  of 
Zechariah  as  could  prove  identity  of  origin.  That 
both  are  spiritual,  or  that  they  have  a  similar  ex- 
pectation of  the  ultimate  position  of  Israel  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  proves  only  that  both  were  late 
offshoots  from  the  same  religious  development,  and 
worked  upon  the  same  ancient  models.  Within  these 
outlines,  there  are  not  a  few  divergences.  Zech.  i. — viii. 
were  written  before  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  had  imposed 
the  Levitical  legislation  upon  Israel ;  but  Eckardt  has 
shown  the  dependence  on  the  latter  of  "  Zech."  ix. — xiv. 

We  may,  therefore,  adhere  to  Canon  Driver's  asser- 
tion, that  Zechariah  in  chaps,  i. — viii.  "  uses  a  different 
phraseology,  evinces  different  interests  and  moves  in 
a  different  circle  of  ideas  from  those  which  prevail  in 
chaps,  ix. — xiv."  ^  Criticism  has  indeed  been  justified 
in  separating,  by  the  vast  and  growing  majority  of  its 
opinions,  the  two  sections  from  each  other.  This  was 
one  of  the  earliest  results  which  modern  criticism 
achieved,  and  the  latest  researches  have  but  estabHshed 
it  on  a  firmer  basis. 

1  Introd.^,  p.  354. 


CHAPTERS  IX.— XIV.   OF  '' ZECHARIAH"  461 

If,  then,  chaps,  ix. — xiv.  be  not  Zechariah's,  to  what 
date  may  we  assign  them  ?  We  have  already  seen  that 
they  bear  evidence  of  being  upon  the  whole  later  than 
Zechariah,  though  they  appear  to  contain  fragments 
from  an  earlier  period.  Perhaps  this  is  all  we  can 
with  certainty  affirm.  Yet  something  more  definite  is 
at  least  probable.  The  mention  of  the  Greeks,  not 
as  Joel  mentions  them  about  400,  the  most  distant 
nation  to  which  Jewish  slaves  could  be  carried,  but  as 
the  chief  of  the  heathen  powers,  and  a  foe  with  whom 
the  Jews  are  in  touch  and  must  soon  cross  swords,^ 
appears  to  imply  that  the  Syrian  campaign  of  Alexander 
is  happening  or  has  happened,  or  even  that  the  Greek 
kingdoms  of  Syria  and  Egypt  are  already  contending 
for  the  possession  of  Palestine.  With  this  agrees  the 
mention  of  Damascus,  Hadrach  and  Hamath,  the 
localities  where  the  Seleucids  had  their  chief  seats.^  In 
that  case  Asshur  would  signify  the  Seleucids  and  Egypt 
the  Ptolemies  :  ^  it  is  these,  and  not  Greece  itself,  from 
whom  the  Jewish  exiles  have  still  to  be  redeemed.  All 
this  makes  probable  the  date  which  Stade  has  proposed 
for  the  chapters,  between  300  and  280  b.c.  To  bring 
them  further  down,  to  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  as 
some  have  tried  to  do,  would  not  be  impossible  so  far 
as  the  historical  allusions  are  concerned  ;  but  had  they 
been  of  so  late  a  date  as  that,  viz.  170  or  160,  we  may 
assert  that  they  could  not  have  found  a  place  in  the 
prophetic  canon,  which  was  closed  by  200,  but  must 
have  fallen  along  with  Daniel  into  the  Hagiographa. 

The  appearance  of  these  prophecies  at  the  close  of 
the  Book  of  Zechariah  has  been  explained,  not  quite 
satisfactorily,  as  follows.     With  the  Book  of  "  Malachi " 

1  ix.  13.  ^  ix.  if.  ^  X.  II.     See  above,  p.  45 1- 


462  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

they  formed  originally  three  anonymous  pieces/  which 
because  of  their  anonymity  were  set  at  the  end  of  the 
Book  of  the  Twelve.  The  first  of  them  begins  with 
the  very  peculiar  construction  ''Massa'  Debar  Jehovah," 
oracle  of  the  word  of  Jehovah^  which,  though  partly  be- 
longing to  the  text,  the  editor  read  as  a  title,  and  attached 
as  a  title  to  each  of  the  others.  It  occurs  nowhere  else. 
The  Book  of  "  Malachi "  was  too  distinct  in  character 
to  be  attached  to  another  book,  and  soon  came  to 
have  the  supposed  name  of  its  author  added  to  its 
title.^  But  the  other  two  pieces  fell,  like  all  anonymous 
works,  to  the  nearest  writing  with  an  author's  name. 
Perhaps  the  attachment  was  hastened  by  the  desire  to 
make  the  round  number  of  Twelve  Prophets. 

*  See  above,  pp.  331  ff.,  for  proof  of  the  original  anonymity  of  the 
Book  of  "  Malachi." 
2  Above,  p.  331. 

Addenda. 

Whiston's  work  (p.  450)  is  An  Essay  towards  restoring  the  Trvte  Text 
of  the  O.  T.  and  for  vindicating  the  Citations  made  thence  in  the  N,  T, 
1722,  pp.  93  ff.  (not  seen).  Besides  those  mentioned  on  p.  452  (see  n.  3) 
as  supporting  the  unity  of  Zechariah  there  ought  to  be  named 
De  Wette,  Umbreit,  von  Hoffmann,  Ebrard,  etc.  Kuiper's  M^ork 
(p.  458)  is  Zacharia  9-14,  Utrecht,  1894  (not  seen).  Nowack's  con- 
clusions are  :  ix. — xi.  3  date  from  the  Greek  period  (we  cannot  date 
them  more  exactly,  unless  ix.  8  refers  to  Ptolemy's  capture  of  Jerusalem 
in  320) ;  xi.,  xiii.  7-9,  are  post-exilic ;  xii. — xiii.  6  long  after  Exile ; 
xiv.  long  after  Exile,  later  than  "  Malachi." 


CHAPTER    XXXIII 
THE  CONTENTS  OF  ''  ZECHARIAW  IX.— XIV 

FROM  the  number  of  conflicting  opinions  which 
prevail  upon  the  subject,  we  have  seen  how 
impossible  it  is  to  decide  upon  a  scheme  of  division 
for  "Zech."  ix. — xiv.  These  chapters  consist  of  a 
number  of  separate  oracles,  which  their  language  and 
general  conceptions  lead  us  on  the  whole  to  believe 
were  put  together  by  one  hand,  and  which,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  some  older  fragments,  reflect  the 
troubled  times  in  Palestine  that  followed  on  the  invasion 
of  Alexander  the  Great.  But  though  the  most  of  them 
are  probably  due  to  one  date  and  possibly  come  from 
the  same  author,  these  oracles  do  not  always  exhibit 
a  connection,  and  indeed  sometimes  show  no  relevance 
to  each  other.  It  will  therefore  be  simplest  to  take 
them  piece  by  piece,  and,  before  giving  the  translation 
of  each,  to  explain  the  difficulties  in  it  and  indicate  the 
ruling  ideas. 

I.  The  Coming  of  the  Greeks  (ix.  i-8). 

This  passage  runs  exactly  in  the  style  of  the  early 
prophets.  It  figures  the  progress  of  war  from  the 
north  of  Syria  southwards  by  the  valley  of  the  Orontes 
to  Damascus,  and  then  along  the  coasts  of  Phoenicia 
and  the  Philistines.  All  these  shall  be  devastated, 
but   Jehovah  will   camp   about    His  own    House   and 

463 


464  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

it  shall  be  inviolate.  This  is  exactly  how  Amos  or 
Isaiah  might  have  pictured  an  Assyrian  campaign,  or 
Zephaniah  a  Scythian.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
that  even  some  of  those  v^ho  take  the  bulk  of 
"Zech."  ix. — xiv.  as  post-exilic  should  regard  ix.  1-5 
as  earher  even  than  Amos,  with  post-exilic  additions 
only  in  vv.  6-^}  This  is  possible.  Vv.  6-8  are 
certainly  post-exilic,  because  of  their  mention  of  the 
half-breeds,  and  their  intimation  that  Jehovah  will 
take  unclean  food  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  heathen; 
but  the  allusions  in  vv.  1-5  suit  an  early  date.  They 
equally  suit,  however,  a  date  in  the  Greek  period.  The 
progress  of  war  from  the  Orontes  valley  by  Damascus 
and  thence  down  the  coast  of  Palestine  follows  the  line 
of  Alexander's  campaign  in  332,  which  must  also  have 
been  the  line  of  Demetrius  in  3 1 5  and  of  Antigonus  in 
311.  The  evidence  of  language  is  mostly  in  favour 
of  a  late  date.^  If  Ptolemy  I.  took  Jerusalem  in  320,^ 
then  the  promise,  no  assailant  shall  return  (ver.  8),  is 
probably  later  than  that. 

In  face  then  of  Alexander's  invasion  of  Palestine, 
or  of  another  campaign  on  the  same  line,  this  oracle 
repeats  the  ancient  confidence  of  Isaiah.  God  rules : 
His  providence  is  awake  alike  for  the  heathen  and 
for  Israel.  Jehovah  hath  an  eye  for  mankind^  and  all 
the  tribes  of  Israel}  The  heathen  shall  be  destroyed, 
but  Jerusalem  rest  secure;  and  the  remnant  of  the 
heathen  be  converted,  according  to  the  Levitical  notion, 
by  having  unclean  foods  taken  out  of  their  mouths. 


•  So  Staerk,  who  thinks  Amos  I.  made  use  of  vv.  1-5. 

^  ix.  I,  DIN,  mankind,  in  contrast  to  the  tribes  of  Israel ;  3,  plPI, 
gold;  5,  1^'^  as  passive,  cf.  xii.  6;  tJ''*2in,  Hi.  of  K^-13,  in  passive 
sense  only  after  Jeremiah  (cf.  above,  p.  412,  on  Joel) ;  in  2  Sam. 
xix.  6  Hosea  ii.  7,  it  is  active.  ^  See  p.  442.  *  ix.  i. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  '' ZECHARIAH''  IX.— XIV.     465 

Oracle. 

The  Word  of  Jehovah  is  on  the  land  of  Hadrach^  and 
Damascus  is  its  goal  ^ — for  Jehovah  hath  an  eye  upon//^^ 
heathen,^  and  all  the  tribes  of  Israel — and  on  ^  Hamath^ 
which  borders  upon  it.  Tyre  and  Sidon^  for  they  were 
very  wise.'^  And  Tyre  built  her  a  fortress,  and  heaped 
up  silver  like  dust,  and  gold  like  the  dirt  of  the  streets. 
Lo,  the  Lord  will  dispossess  her,  and  strike  her  rampart  ^ 
into  the  sea,  and  she  shall  be  consumed  in  fire.  Ashklon 
shall  see  and  shall  fear,  and  Gaza  writhe  in  anguish, 
and  Ekron,  for  her  confidence  ^  is  abashed,  and  the  king 
shall  perish  from  Gaza  and  Ashklon  lie  uninhabited. 
Half-breeds  ^  shall  dwell  in  Ashdod,  and  I  will  cut  down 
the  pride  of  the  Philistines.  And  I  will  take  their  blood 
from  their  mouth  and  their  abominations  from  between 
their  teeth,^  and  even  they  shall  be  left  for  our  God,  and 
shall  become  like  a  clan  in  Judah,  and  Ekron  shall  be 
as  the  Jebusite.  And  I  shall  encamp  for  a  guard^  to 
My  House,   so.  that   none  pass   by   or  return,  and  no 

'  Heb.  resting-place  :  cf.  Zech.  vi.  8,  bring  Mine  anger  to  rest.  This 
meets  the  objection  of  Bredenkamp  and  others,  that  nniJtt  is  other- 
wise used  of  Jehovah  alone,  in  consequence  of  which  they  refer  the 
suffix  to  Him. 

'^  The  expression  hath  an  eye  is  so  unusual  that  Klostermann,  Theo. 
Lttt.  Zeit.,  1879,  566  (quoted  by  Nowack),  proposes  to  read  for  py 
ny,  Jehovah's  are  the  cities  of  the  heathen.  For  Ul^,  mankind,  as 
=  heathen  cf.  Jer.  xxxii.  20.  ^  Cf.  Nahum  iii.  8;  Isa.  xxvi.  1. 

3  So  LXX.  :  Heb.  also.  «  Read  nntpnp. 

*  So  LXX. :  Heb.  has  verb  in  sing.     ''  Deut.  xxiii.  3  (Heb.,  2.Eng.). 

^  The  prepositions  refer  to  the  half-breeds.  Ezekiel  uses  the  term 
to  eat  upon  the  blood,  i.e.  meat  eaten  without  being  ritually  slain  and 
consecrated,  for  illegal  sacrifices  (xxxiii.  35  :  cf.  I  Sam.  xiv.  32  f. ; 
Lev.  xix.  26,  xvii,  11-14). 

^  r^-l^lp  for  Nny-|P  ;  but  to  be  amended  to  ni-VO  i  Sam.  xiv.  12, 
a   military  post.     Ewald  reads  Hl-VDj    rampart.     LXX.  avdaTrj/xa  = 

T  ••    - 

VOL.  IL  30 


466  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

assailant  again  pass  upon  them,  for  now  do  I  regard  it 

with  Mine  eyes. 

2)  2.  The  Prince  of  Peace  (ix.  9-12). 

This  beautiful  picture,  applied  by  the  Evangelist  with 
such  fitness  to  our  Lord  upon  His  entry  to  Jerusalem, 
must  also  be  of  post-exilic  date.  It  contrasts  with  the 
warlike  portraits  of  the  Messiah  drawn  in  pre-exilic 
times,  for  it  clothes  Him  with  humility  and  with  peace. 
The  coming  King  of  Israel  has  the  attributes  already 
imputed  to  the  Servant  of  Jehovah  by  the  prophet  of 
the  Babylonian  captivity.  The  next  verses  also  imply 
the  Exile  as  already  a  fact.  On  the  whole,  too,  the 
language  is  of  a  late  rather  than  of  an  early  date.^ 
Nothing  in  the  passage  betrays  the  exact  point  of 
its  origin  after  the  Exile. 

The  epithets  applied  to  the  Messiah  are  of  very  great 
interest.  He  does  not  bring  victory  or  salvation,  but 
is  the  passive  recipient  of  it.^  This  determines  the 
meaning  of  the  preceding  adjective,  righteous^  which 
has  not  the  moral  sense  oi  justice y  but  rather  that  of 
vindication,  in  which  righteousness  and  righteous  are  so 
frequently  used  in  Isa.  xl. — Iv.^  He  is  lowly,  like  the 
Servant  of  Jehovah ;  and  comes  riding  not  the  horse, 
an]; animal  for  war,  because  the  next  verse  says  that 
horses   and  chariots  are  to   be  removed  from  Israel,* 

'  ix.  10,  y^^,  cf.  Dan.  xi.  4;  "j^lN  '•DSi^  only  in  late  writings 
(unless  Deut.  xxxiii.  17  be  early)— see  Eckardt,  p.  80;  12,  jH-Vi  is 
8.TTa^\eyi>lxevov',  the  last  clause  of  12  is  based  on  Isa.  Ixi.  7.  If  our 
interpretation  of  p''1V  and  W\^  be  right,  they  are  also  symptdms  of 
a  late  date. 

2  yiJ'li  (ver,  9) :  the  passive  participle. 

■■'  Cf.  Isaiah  xl.—lxvi.  (Expositor's  Bible),  p.  219. 

*  Why  chariot  from  Ephraim  and  horse  from  Jerusalem  is  explained 
in  Hist,  Geog.,  pp.  329-331- 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  '^  ZECHARIAH"  IX.— XIV.     467 

but  the  ass,  the  animal  not  of  lowliness,  as  some 
have  interpreted,  but  of  peace.  To  this  day  in  the 
East  asses  are  used,  as  they  are  represented  in  the 
Song  of  Deborah,  by  great  officials,  but  only  when 
these  are  upon  civil,  and  not  upon  military,  duty. 

It  is  possible  that  this  oracle  closes  with  ver.  10, 
and  that  we  should  take  vv.  ii  and  12,  on  the 
deliverance  from  exile,  with  the  next. 

Rejoice  mightily,  daughter  of  Zion !  shout  aloudy 
daughter  of  Jerusalem  !  Lo,  thy  King  cometh  to  thee, 
vindicated  and  victorious,^  meek  and  riding  on  an  ass^^ 
and  on  a  colt  the  she-ass'  foal. ^  And  I^  will  cut  off  the 
chariot  from  Ephraim  and  the  horse  from  Jerusalem,  and 
the  war-bow  shall  be  cut  off,  and  He  shall  speak  peace  to 
the  nations,  and  His  rule  shall  be  from  sea  to  sea  and 
from  the  river  even  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Thou, 
too, — by  thy  covenant-blood^  I  have  set  free  thy  prisoners 
from  the  pit^  Return  to  the  fortress,  ye  prisoners  of 
hope;  even  to-day  do  I  proclaim :  Double  will  I  return 
to  thee} 

3.  The  Slaughter  of  the  Greeks  (ix.  13-17). 

The  next  oracle  seems  singularly  out  of  keeping 
with  the  spirit  of  the  last,  which  declared  the  arrival 
of  the  Messianic  peace,  while  this  represents  Jehovah 
as  using  Israel  for  His  weapons   in  the  slaughter  of 

*  See  above.  *  Son  of  she-asses. 

-  Symbol  of  peace  as  the  horse  was  of  war.       *  Mass. :  LXX.  He. 

^  Heb.  blood  of  thy  covenant,  but  the  suffix  refers  to  the  whole 
phrase  (Duhm,  Theol,  der  Proph.,  p.  143).  The  covenant  is  Jehovah's  ; 
the  blood,  that  which  the  people  shed  in  sacrifice  to  ratify  the 
covenant. 

^  Heb.  adds  there  is  no  water  in  it,  but  this  is  either  a  gloss,  or 
perhaps  an  attempt  to  make  sense  out  of  a  dittography  of  "IHD, 
or  a  corruptioH  of  none  shall  be  ashamed.  '  I?a.  Ixi,  7, 


468  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  Greeks  and  heathens,  in  whose  blood  they  shall 
revel.  But  Stade  has  pointed  out  how  often  in  chaps. 
ix. — xiv.  a  result  is  first  stated  and  then  the  oracle 
goes  on  to  describe  the  process  by  which  it  is  achieved. 
Accordingly  we  have  no  ground  for  affirming  ix.  13-17 
to  be  by  another  hand  than  ix.  9-12.  The  apocalyptic 
character  of  the  means  by  which  the  heathen  are  to 
be  overthrown,  and  the  exultation  displayed  in  their 
slaughter,  as  in  a  great  sacrifice  (ver.  15),  betray 
Israel  in  a  state  of  absolute  political  weakness,  and 
therefore  suit  a  date  after  Alexander's  campaigns, 
which  is  also  made  sure  by  the  reference  to  the  sons 
of  Javan,  as  if  Israel  were  now  in  immediate  contact 
with  them.  Kirkpatrick's  note  should  be  read,  in 
which  he  seeks  to  prove  the  sons  of  Javan  a  late 
gloss  ;^  but  his  reasons  do  not  appear  conclusive. 
The  language  bears  several  traces  of  lateness.^ 

For  I  have  drawn  Judahfor  My  bow^  I  have  charged 
it  with  Ephraim;  and  I  will  urge  thy  sons,  O  Zion^ 
against  the  sons  of  ^  Javan,  and  make  thee  like  the  sword 
of  a  hero.  Then  will  Jehovah  appear  above  them,  and 
His  shaft  shall  go  forth  like  lightning;  and  the  Lord 
Jehovah  shall  blow  a  blast  on  the  trumpet,  and  travel  in 
the  storms  of  the  south}  Jehovah  will  protect  them,  and 
they  shall  devour  (?)"  and  trample  .   .   .  ;^   and  they 


•  Doctrine  of  the  Prophets,  Note  A,  p.  472. 

2  14,  on  p^n  see  Eckardt;  15,  flVn,  Aramaism ;  J^33  is  late;  17, 
DDIJnn,  only  here  and  Psalm  Ix.  6;  21J,  probably  late. 

^  So  LXX.  :  Heb.  reads,  thy  sons,  O  Javan. 
LXX.   eV  aaXij}  r^s  direCKri^  avrov,    in    the  tossing  of  His  threat, 
nyi  "lySJ^a  (?)  or  nyn  '•\V^>2.     it  is  natural  to  see  here  a  reference 
to  the  Theophanies  of  Hab.  iii.  3,  Deut.  xxxiii.  (see  above,  pp.  I50f.). 

^  Perhaps  •"l??)]^  overcome  them.     LXX.  KaTamXuaovaiv. 

"  Heb.  stones  0/  a  sling,  ])hp  '•J3N.     Wellhausen  and  Nowack  read 
sons,  >J3,  but  what  then  is  V?p  ? 


THE   CONTENTS  OF  "ZECHARIAH"  IX.— XIV.     469 

shall  drink  their  blood^  like  wine,  and  be  drenched  with 
it,  like  a  bowl  and  like  the  corners  of  the  altar.  And 
Jehovah  their  God  will  give  them  victory  in  that  day.  .  .  .^ 
How  good  it  ^  is,  and  hoiv  beautiful  I  Corn  shall  make 
the  young  men  flourish  and  new  ivine  the  maidens. 

4.  Against  the   Teraphim  and  Sorcerers   (x.   i,  2). 

This  little  piece  is  connected  with  the  previous  one 
only  through  the  latter's  conclusion  upon  the  fertility 
of  the  land,  while  this  opens  with  rain,  the  requisite  of 
fertiUty.  It  is  connected  with  the  piece  that  follows  only 
by  its  mention  of  the  shepherdless  state  of  the  people, 
the  piece  that  follows  being  against  the  false  shepherds. 
These  connections  are  extremely  slight.  Perhaps  the 
piece  is  an  independent  "one.  The  subject  of  it  gives 
no  clue  to  the  date.  Sorcerers  are  condemned  both 
by  the  earlier  prophets,  and  by  the  later.*  Stade 
points  out  that  this  is  the  only  passage  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  which  the  Teraphim  are  said  to  speak.^ 
The  language  has  one  symptom  of  a  late  period.^ 

After  emphasising  the  futihty  of  images,  enchant- 
ments and  dreams,  this  little  oracle  says,  therefore  the 

'  Reading  DDT  for  Heb.  IDH"),  and  roar. 

^  Heb.  like  a /lock  oj  sheep  His  people,  (but  how  is  one  to  construe 
this  with  the  context  ?)  for  (?  like)  stones  of  a  diadem  lifting  them- 
selves up  (?  shimmering)  over  His  land.  Wellhausen  and  Nowack 
delete /or  s/ow^s  .  .  .  shimmering  as  a  gloss.  This  would  leave  like 
a  flock  of  sheep  His  people  in  His  land,  to  which  it  is  proposed  to  add 
He  will  feed.     This  gives  good  sense. 

^  Wellhausen,  reading  HZIID,  fern,  suffix  for  neuter.  Ewald  and 
others  He.     Hitzig  and  others  they,  the  people. 

«  Of  these  cf.  "Mai.  "  iii.  5;  the  late  Jer.  xliv.  8  ff, ;  Isa.  Ixv.  3-5  ; 
and,  in  the  Priestly  Law,  Lev.  xix.  31,  xx.  6. 

*  Z.A.T.W.,  L  60.  He  compares  this  verse  with  i  Sam.  xv.  23. 
In  Ezek.  xxi.  26  they  give  oracles. 

"  T''Tn,  lightning-flash,  only  here  and  in  Job  xxviii.  26,  xxxviii.  25, 


470  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

people  wander  like  sheep :  they  have  no  shepherd. 
Shepherd  in  this  connection  cannot  mean  civil  ruler, 
but  must  be  religious  director. 

Ask  from  Jehovah  rain  in  the  time  of  the  latter  rain} 
Jehovah  is  the  maker  of  the  lightning-flashes,  and  the 
winter  rain  He  gives  to  them — to  every  man  herbage  in 
the  field.  But  the  Teraphim  speak  nothingness,  and  the 
sorcerers  see  lies,  and  dreams  discourse  vanity,  and  they 
comfort  in  vain.  Wherefore  they  wander  (?)  ^  like  a 
flock  of  sheep,  and  flee  ah  out ^  for  there  is  no  shepherd. 

c^  5.  Against  Evil  Shepherds  (x.  3-12). 

The  unity  of  this  section  is  more  apparent  than  its 
connection  with  the  preceding,  which  had  spoken  of 
the  want  of  a  shepherd,  or  religious  director,  of  Israel, 
while  this  is  directed  against  their  shepherds  and 
leaders,  meaning  their  foreign  tyrants."^  The  figure  is 
taken  from  Jeremiah  xxiii.  i  ff.,  where,  besides,  to  visit 
upon  ^  is  used  in  a  sense  of  punishment,  but  the  simple 
visit  ^  in  the  sense  of  to  look  after,  just  as  within 
ver.  3  of  this  tenth  chapter.  Who  these  foreign 
tyrants  are  is  not  explicitly  stated,  but  the  reference 
to  Egypt  and  Assyria  as  lands  whence  the  Jewish 
captives  shall  be  brought  home,  while  at  the  same  time 
there  is  a  Jewish  nation  in  Judah,  suits  only  the  Greek 
period,    after    Ptolemy    had   taken    so   many  Jews   to 

'  LXX.  read  :  in  season  early  rain  and  latter  rain. 

"^  lyDJ,  used  of  a  nomadic  life  in  Jer.  xxxi.  24  (23),  and  so  it  is 
possible  that  in  a  later  stage  of  the  language  it  had  come  to  mean  to 
wander  or  stray.  But  this  is  doubtful,  and  there  may  be  a  false 
reading,  as  appears  from  LXX.  e ^rjpdv 9 Tjaav. 

3  For  13y^  read  )V:^).     The  LXX.  iKaKdjOyjaav  read  )V\^). 

*  There  can  therefore  be  none  of  that  connection  between  the  two 
pieces  which  Kirkpatrick  assumes  (p.  454  and  note  2). 


THE   CONTENTS   OF  "ZECHARIAH"  IX.— XIV.      471 

Egypt/  and  there  were  numbers  still  scattered  through- 
out the  other  great  empire  in  the  north,  to  which, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  the  Jews  applied  the  name 
of  Assyria.  The  reference  can  hardly  suit  the  years 
after  Seleucus  and  Ptolemy  granted  to  the  Jews  in 
their  territories  the  rights  of  citizens.  The  captive 
Jews  are  to  be  brought  back  to  Gilead  and  Lebanon. 
Why  exactly  these  are  mentioned,  and  neither  Samaria 
nor  Galilee,  forms  a  difficulty,  to  whatever  age  we 
assign  the  chapter.  The  language  of  x.  3-12  has 
several  late  features.^  Joseph  or  Ephraim,  here  and 
elsewhere  in  these  chapters,  is  used  of  the  portion  of 
Israel  still  in  captivity,  in  contrast  to  Judah,  the  re- 
turned community. 

The  passage  predicts  that  Jehovah  will  change  His 
poor  leaderless  sheep,  the  Jews,  into  war-horses,  and 
give  them  strong  chiefs  and  weapons  of  war.  They 
shall  overthrow  the  heathen,  and  Jehovah  will  bring 
back  His  exiles.  The  passage  is  therefore  one  with 
chap.  ix. 

My  wrath  is  hot  against  the  shepherds^  and  I  will 
make  visitation  on  the  he-goats :  ^  yea,  Jehovah  of  Hosts 
will^  visit  His  flock,  the  house  of  Judah,  and  will  make 
them  like  His  splendid  war-horses.  From  Him  the 
corner-stone,  from  Him  the  stay,^  from  Him  the  war- 
bow,  from  Him  the  oppressor — shall  go  forth  together. 
And  in  battle  shall  they  trample  on  heroes  as  on  the  dirt 

^  See  above,  p.  444. 

^  X.  5,  D13,  Eckardt,  p.  82;  6,  12,  I^Jlj  Pi.,  cf.  Eccles.  x.  10,  where 
it  alone  occurs  besides  here  ;  5,  ii>  1^''in  in  passive  sense. 

^  As  we  should  say,  bell-wethers  :  cf.  Isa.  xiv.  9,  also  a  late  meaning. 

*  So  LXX.,  reading  "lpS>-'D  for  npQ-'»3. 

^  Corner-stone  as  name  for  a  chief:  cf.  Judg.  xx.  2  ;  i  Sam.  xiv.  38; 
Isa.  xix.  13.  Stay  or  tent-pin,  Isa.  xxii.  23.  From  Him,  others 
from  them. 


472  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

of  the  streets,^  and  fight ^  for  Jehovah  is  with  them,  and 
the  riders  on  horses  shall  be  abashed.  And  the  house 
ofjudah  will  I  make  strong  and  work  salvation  for  the 
house  of  Joseph,  and  bring  them  back,^  for  I  have  pity 
for  ihem^  and  they  shall  be  as  though  I  had  not  put  them 
away^  for  I  am  Jehovah  their  God^  and  I  will  hold 
converse  with  them?  And  Ephraim  shall  be  as  heroes,^ 
and  their  heart  shall  be  glad  as  with  wine,  and  their 
children  shall  behold  and  be  glad:  their  heart  shall 
rejoice  in  Jehovah.  I  will  whistle  for  them  and  gather 
them  in,  for  I  have  redeemed  them,  and  they  shall  be 
as  many  as  they  once  were.  I  scattered  them^  among 
the  nations,  but  among  the  far-away  they  think  of  Me, 
and  they  will  bring  up^  their  children,  and  come  back. 
And  I  will  fetch  them  home  from  the  land  of  Misraim, 
and  from  Asshur"^  will  I  gather  them,  and  to  the  la7td 
of  Gilead  and  Lebanon  will  I  bring  them  in,  though 
these  be  not  found  suffisient/or  them.  And  they^  shall 
pass  through  the  sea  of  Egypt,^  and  He  shall  smite  the 
sea  of  breakers,  and  all  the  deeps  of  the  Nile  shall  be 
dried,  and  the  pride  of  Assyria  brought  down,  and  the 
sceptre  of  Egypt  swept  aside.     And  their  strength  ^^  shall 

'  Read  Dn335  and  D^D?  (Wellhausen). 

2  Read  D^nUK^HI  for  the  Mass.  D^nb^'ini,  and  I  will  make  them 
to  dwell. 

^  D^n»n"l  and  DTimt,  Dn\"l'?S  and  Dii;N*,  key-words  of  Hosea 
i. — iii. 

'  LXX. ;  sing.  Heb. 

^  Changing  the  Heb.  points  which  make  the  verb  future.  See 
Nowack's  note. 

«  With  LXX.  read  -Vm  for  Mass.  -Vm. 

•  :  T  : 

'  See  above,  pp.  451,  471. 
«  So  LXX. ;  Mass.  sing. 

^  Heb.  mV,  narrow  sea :  so  LXX.,  but  Wellhausen  suggests 
DnVD,  which  Nowack  adopts. 

»»  Dnn:i3  for  o^nnax 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  ^^ZECHARIAH"  IX.- XIV.     473 


be  in  Jehovah^  and  in  His  Name  shall  they  boast  them- 
selves^— oracle  of  Jehovah. 

6.   War  upon  the  Syrian  Tyrants  (xi.  1-3).        / 

This  is  taken  by  some  with  the  previous  chapter,  by 
others  with  the  passage  following.  Either  connection 
seems  precarious.  No  conclusion  as  to  date  can  be 
drawn  from  the  language.  But  the  localities  threatened 
were  on  the  southward  front  of  the  Seleucid  kingdom. 
Open,  Lebanon,  thy  doors  suits  the  Egyptian  invasions 
of  that  kingdom.  To  which  of  these  the  passage 
refers  cannot  of  course  be  determined.  The  shepherds 
are  the  rulers. 

Open,  Lebanon,  thy  doors,  that  the  fire  may  devour  in 
thy  cedars.  Wail,  O  pine-tree,  for  the  cedar  is  fallen;"^ 
wail,  O  oaks  of  Bashan,  for  fallen  is  the  impenetrable  ^ 
wood.  Hark  to  the  wailing  of  the  shepherds  !  for  their 
glory  is  destroyed.  Hark  how  the  lions  roar  !  for  blasted 
is  the  pride  ^  of  Jordan. 

7.   The  Rejection  and  Murder  of  the  Good 
Shepherd  (xi.  4-17,  xiii.  7-9). 

There  follows  now,  in  the  rest  of  chap,  xi.,  a  longer 
oracle,  to  which  Ewald  and  most  critics  after  him  have 
suitably  attached  chap.  xiii.  7-9. 

This  passage  appears  to  rise  from  circumstances 
similar  to  those  of  the  preceding  and  from  the  same 
circle  of  ideas.     Jehovah's  people  are    His  flock  and 

'  For  ID^Pnn^  read  h^TWW  with  LXX.  and  Syr. 

^  Heb.  adds  here  a  difficult  clause,  for  nobles  are  wasted.  Probably 
a  gloss. 

3  After  the  Keri. 

*  I.e.  rankness;  applied  to  the  thick  vegetation  in  the  larger  bed  of 
the  stream  :  see  Hist.  Geog.^  p.  484. 


474  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

have  suffered.  Their  rulers  are  their  shepherds  ;  and 
the  rulers  of  other  peoples  are  their  shepherds.  A 
true  shepherd  is  sought  for  Israel  in  place  of  the  evil 
ones  which  have  distressed  them.  The  language  shows 
traces  of  a  late  date.^  No  historical  allusion  is  obvious 
in  the  passage.  The  buyers  and  sellers  of  God's  sheep 
might  reflect  the  Seleucids  and  Ptolemies  between  v/hom 
Israel  were  exchanged  for  many  years,  but  probably 
mean  their  native  leaders.  The  three  shepherds  cut  off 
in  a  month  were  interpreted  by  the  supporters  of  the 
pre-exilic  date  of  the  chapters  as  Zechariah  and  Shallum 
(2  Kings  XV.  8-13),  and  another  whom  these  critics 
assume  to  have  followed  them  to  death,  but  of  him  the 
history  has  no  trace.  The  supporters  of  a  Maccabean 
date  for  the  prophecy  recall  the  quick  succession  of 
high  priests  before  the  Maccabean  rising.  The  one_ 
month  probably  means  nothing  more  than  a  very  short 
time. 

The  allegory  which  our  passage  unfolds  is  given, 
like  so  many  more  in  Hebrew  prophecy,  to  the  prophet 
himself  to  enact.  It  recalls  the  pictures  in  Jeremiah 
and  Ezekiel  of  the  overthrow  of  the  false  shepherds 
of  Israel,  and  the  appointment  of  a  true  shepherd.^ 
Jehovah  commissions  the  prophet  to  become  shepherd 
to  His  sheep  that  have  been  so  cruelly  abused  by  their 
guides  and  rulers.     Like  the  shepherds  of  Palestine, 

'  xi.  5,  It^rXlj  Hiph,,  but  intransitive,  ^roze;  r/c/? ;  6,  N''VD^;  7,  10, 
Di;3  (?) ;  8,  ''?n3,  Aram. ;  13,  '^\>\  Aram.,  Jer.  xx.  5,  Ezek.  xxii.  25, 
Job  xxviii.  10 ;  in  Esther  ten,  in  Daniel  four  times  (Eckardt)  ;  xiii.  7, 
JT'Dl^,  one  of  the  marks  of  the  affinity  of  the  language  of  "  Zech." 
ix. — xiv.  to  that  of  the  Priestly  Code  (cf.  Lev.  v.  21,  xviii.  20,  etc.), 
but  in  P  it  is  concrete,  here  abstract;  D^yV;  8,  V1)l,  see  Eckardt, 
p.  85. 

*  Jer.  xxiii.  1-8 ;  Ezek.  xxxiv.,  xxxvii.  24  ff. :  cf.  Kirkpatrick 
P.  462. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  " ZECHARIAH"  IX.— XIV.     475 

the  prophet  took  two  staves  to  herd  his  flock.  He  V^ 
called  one  Grace,  the  other  Union.  In  a  month  he 
cut  off  three  shepherds — both  month  and  three  are 
probably  formal  terms.  But  he  did  not  get  on  well 
with  his  charge.  They  were  wilful  and  quarrel- 
some. So  he  broke  his  staff  Grace,  in  token  that  his 
engagement  was  dissolved.  The  dealers  of  the  sheep 
saw  that  he  acted  for  God.  He  asked  for  his  wage, 
if  they  cared  to  give  it.  They  gave  him  thirty  pieces 
of  silver,  the  price  of  an  injured  slave, ^  which  by 
God's  command  he  cast  into  the  treasury  of  the  Temple, 
as  if  in  token  that  it  was  God  Himself  whom  they 
paid  with  so  wretched  a  sum.  And  then  he  broke 
his  other  staff,  to  signify  that  the  brotherhood  between 
Judah  and  Israel  was  broken.  Then,  to  show  the 
people  that  by  their  rejection  of  the  good  shepherd 
they  must  fall  a  prey  to  an  evil  one,  the  prophet 
assumed  the  character  of  the  latter.  But  another  judg- 
ment follows.  In  chap.  xiii.  7-9  the  good  shepherd  is 
smitten  and  the  flock  dispersed. 

The  spiritual  principles  which  underlie  this  allegory 
are  obvious.  God's  own  sheep,  persecuted  and  helpless 
though  they  be,  are  yet  obstinate,  and  their  obstinacy 
not  only  renders  God's  good-will  to  them  futile,  but 
causes  the  death  of  the  one  man  who  could  have  done 
them  good.  The  guilty  sacrifice  the  innocent,  but  in 
this  execute  their  own  doom.  That  is  a  summary  of 
the  history  of  Israel.  But  had  the  writer  of  this  allegory 
any  special  part  of  that  history  in  view  ?  Who  were 
the  dealers  of  the  flock  ? 

Thus  saith  Jehovah  my  God :  ^  Shepherd  the  flock  of 
slaughter,  whose  purchasers  slaughter  them  impenitently, 

'  Exod,  xxi.  32.  ^  LXX.  God  of  Hosts. 


476  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

and  whose  sellers  say^  Blessed  be  Jehovah^  for  I  am 
rich  ! — and  their  shepherds  do  not  spare  them.  \_For 
I  will  no  more  spare  the  inhabitants  of  the  land — 
oracle  of  Jehovah ;  but  lo  I  I  am  about  to  give  man- 
kind'*- over^  each  into  the  hand  of  his  shepherd,^  and 
into  the  hand  of  his  king;  and  they  shall  destroy  the 
landj  and  I  will  not  secure  it  from  their  hands.^] 
And  I  shepherded  the  flock  of  slaughter  for  the  sheep 
merchants,^  and  I  took  to  me  two  staves — the  one  I 
called  Grace f  and  the  other  I  called  Union  ^ — and  so  I 
shepherded  the  sheep.  And  I  destroyed  the  three  shep- 
herds in  one  month.  Then  was  my  soul  vexed  with  them^ 
and  they  on  their  part  were  displeased  with  me.  And 
I  said :  I  will  not  shepherd  you  :  what  is  dead,  let  it  die; 
and  what  is  destroyed,  let  it  be  destroyed;  and  those  that 
survive,  let  them  devour  one  another'' s  flesh  !  And  I  took 
my  staff  Grace,  and  I  brake  it  so  as  to  annul  my  cove- 
nant which  I  made  with  all  the  peoples^  And  in  that 
day  it  was  annulled,  and  the  dealers  of  the  shcep,^  who 
watched  me,  knew  that  it  was  Jehovah's  word.     And  I 

'  Read  plural  with  LXX. 

^  That  is  the  late  Hebrew  name  for  the  heathen  :   cf.  ix.  i. 

3  Heb.    -inj^n    neighbour;    read  -inj;'-). 

*  Many  take  this  verse  as  an  intrusion.  It  certainly  seems  to  add 
nothing  to  the  sense  and  to  interrupt  the  connection,  which  is  clear 
when  it  is  removed. 

^  Heb.  |N-Vn  V.py  IP  ?j  wherefore  the  miserable  of  the  flock,  which 
makes  no  sense.  But  LXX.  read  ets  tV  XavaaviTiijv,  and  this  suggests 
the  Heb.  "'Jl^^s'?,  to  the  Canaaiu'tes,  i.e.  merchants,  of  the  sheep  :  so  in 
ver.  II. 

«  Lit.  Bands. 

^  The  sense  is  here  obscure.  Is  the  text  sound  ?  In  harmony 
with  the  context  0**^^  ought  to  m&di\\  tribes  of  Israel.  But  every 
passage  in  the  O.T.  in  which  D''Dy  might  mean  tribes  has  been  shown 
to  have  a  doubtful  text :  Deut.  xxxii.  8,  xxxiii.  3  ;  Hosea  x.  14 ; 
Micah  i.  2. 

^  See  above,  note  5,  on  the  same  mis-read  phrase  in  ver.  7. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  "ZECHARIAH"  IX. -XIV.     477 

said  to  them,  If  it  be  good  in  your  sight,  give  me  my 
wage,  and  if  it  be  not  good,  let  it  go  !  And  they  weighed 
out  my  wage,  thirty  pieces  of  silver.  Then  said  Jehovah 
to  me.  Throw  it  into  the  treasury'^  {the  precious  wage 
at  which  V"  had  been  valued  of  them).  So  I  took  the 
thirty  pieces  of  silver,  and  cast  them  to  the  House  of  Jehovah, 
to  the  treasury}  And  I  brake  my  second  staff,  Union,  so 
as  to  dissolve  the  brotherhood  between  Judah  and  Israel} 
And  Jehovah  said  to  me  :  Take  again  to  thee  the  imple- 
ments of  a  worthless  shepherd :  for  lo  !  I  am  about  to 
appoint  a  shepherd  over  the  land;  the  destroyed  he  will 
not  visit,  the  .  .  .  ^  he  will  not  seek  out,  the  wounded  he 
will  not  heal,  the  .  .  .^  he  will  not  cherish,  but  he  ivill 
devour  the  flesh  of  the  fat  and .  .  .  . " 

Woe  to  My  worthless  ^  shepherd,  that  deserts  the  flock  I 
The  sword  be  upon  his  arm  and  his  right  eye  !  May 
his  arm  wither,  and  his  right  eye  be  blinded. 

Upon  this  follows  the  section  xiii.  7-9,  which  de- 
velops the  tragedy  of  the  nation  to  its  climax  in  the 
murder  of  the  good  shepherd. 

Up,  Sword,  against  My  shepherd  and  the  man  My 


*  Heb.  TifVn  the  potter.  LXX.  x^J'euTTyptof ,  smelting  furnace.  Read 
"IVixn   by  change  of  J<  for  "i :  the  two  are  often  confounded ;  see  n.  3. 

^  Wellhausen  and  Nowack  read  thou  hast  been  valued  of  them.  But 
there  is  no  need  of  this.  The  clause  is  a  sarcastic  parenthesis  spoken 
by  the  prophet  himself. 

^  Again  Heb.  the  potter,  LXX.  the  smelting  furnace,  as  above  in 
ver.  13.  The  additional  clause  House  of  God  proves  how  right  it 
is  to  read  the  treasury,  and  disposes  of  the  idea  that  to  throw  to  the 
potter  was  a  proverb  for  throwing  away. 

*  Two  codd.  read  Jerusalem,  which  Wellhausen  and  Nowack 
adopt. 

*  Heb.  lysrij  the  scattered.     LXX.  tov  ecrKopwlcrfJLevov. 

®  nn-'^'^rij  obscure:  some  translate  the  sound  or  stable, 

^  Heb.  and  their  hoofs  he  ivill  tear  {?). 

8  For  Heb.  ^^"?Xn  read  as  in  ver.  15  ^^^INH. 


478  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

compatriot  ^ — oracle  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts.  Smite  ^  the 
shepherd,  that  the  sheep  may  be  scattered;  and  1  will  turn 
My  hand  against  the  little  ones.^  And  it  shall  come  to 
pass  in  all  the  land — oracle  of  Jehovah — that  two-thirds 
shall  be  cut  off  in  it,  and  perish,  but  a  third  shall  be  left  in 
if.  And  I  shall  bring  the  third  into  the  fire ^  and  smelt  it 
as  men  smelt  silver  and  try  it  as  men  try  gold.  It  shall 
call  upon  My  Name,  and  I  will  answer  it.  And  I  ivill^ 
say,  It  is  My  people,  and  it  will  say,  Jehovah  my  God  / 

X  8.  JuDAH  versus  Jerusalem  (xii.   1-7). 

A  title,  though  probably  of  later  date  than  the  text,^ 
introduces  with  the  beginning  of  chap.  xii.  an  oracle 
plainly  from  circumstances  different  from  those  of  the 
preceding  chapters.  The  nations,  not  particularised  as 
they  have  been,  gather  to  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  and, 
very  singularly,  Judah  is  gathered  with  them  against 
her  own  capital.  But  God  makes  the  city  like  one  of 
those  great  boulders,  deeply  embedded,  which  husband- 
men try  to  pull  up  from  their  fields,  but  it  tears  and 
wounds  the  hands  of  those  who  would  remove  it. 
Moreover  God  strikes  with  panic  all  the  besiegers,  save 
only  Judah,  who,  her  eyes  being  opened,  perceives 
that  God  is  with  Jerusalem  and  turns  to  her  help. 
Jerusalem  remains  in  her  place  ;  but  the  glory  of  the 
victory  is  first  Judah's,  so  that  the  house  of  David  may 
not  have  too  much  fame  nor  boast  over  the  country 
districts.  The  writer  doubtless  alludes  to  some  tem- 
porary schism  between  the  capital  and  country  caused 


*  r\'''OV  :  only  in  Lev.  and  here. 

^  "in.     Perhaps  we  should  read  n|Xj  I  smite,  with  Matt.  xxvi.  31. 
^  Some  take  this  as  a  promise  :  Hint  My  hand  towards  the  little  ones. 

*  LXX.     Heb.  Tl-IDN,  but  the  )  has  fallen  from  the  front  of  it. 

*  See  above,  p.  462. 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  '^  ZECHARIAH"  IX.— XIV.     479 

by  the  arrogance  of  the  former.  But  we  have  no 
means  of  knowing  when  this  took  place.  It  must  often 
have  been  imminent  in  the  days  both  before  and 
especially  after  the  Exile,  when  Jerusalem  had  absorbed 
all  the  religious  privilege  and  influence  of  the  nation. 
The  language  is  undoubtedly  late.^ 

The  figure  of  Jerusalem  as  a  boulder,  deeply  bedded 
in  the  soil,  which  tears  the  hands  that  seek  to  remove 
it,  is  a  most  true  and  expressive  summary  of  the  history 
of  heathen  assaults  upon  her.  Till  she  herself  was 
rent  by  internal  dissensions,  and  the  Romans  at  last 
succeeded  in  tearing  her  loose,  she  remained  planted 
on  her  own  site.^  This  was  very  true  of  all  the  Greek 
period.  Seleucids  and  Ptolemies  alike  wounded  them- 
selves upon  her.  But  at  what  period  did  either  of 
them  induce  Judah  to  take  part  against  her  ?  Not  in 
the  Maccabean. 

Oracle  of  the   Word  of  Jehovah  upon  Israel. 

Oracle  of  Jehovah,  who  stretched  out  the  heavens  and 

founded  the  earth,  and  formed  the  spirit  of  man  within 

him :  Lo,  I  am  about  to  make  Jerusalem  a  cup  of  reeling 

for  all  the  surrounding  peoples,  and  even  Judah  ^  shall 

•  xii.  2,  />y")j  a  noun  not  found  elsewhere  in  O.  T.  We  found  the 
verb  in  Nahum  ii.  4  (see  above,  p.  106),  and  probably  in  Hab.  ii.  16 
for  ?irni  (see  above,  p.  147,  n.  3):  it  is  common  in  Aramean ;  other 
forms  belong  to  later  Hebrew  (cf.  Eckardt,  p.  85).  3,  D"lK^  is  used 
in  classic  Heb.  only  of  intentional  cutting  and  tattooing  of  oneself; 
in  the  sense  oi  wounding  which  it  has  here  it  is  frequent  in  Aramean. 
3  has  besides  ilDDyD  \2^,  not  found  elsewhere.  4  has  three  nouns 
terminating  in  P",  two  of  them— pnDn,/>a«/c,  and  \yW,  judicial  blind- 
ness— in  O.  T.  only  found  here  and  in  Deut.  xxviii.  28,  the  former  also 
in  Aramean.  7,  N?  IVD?  is  also  cited  by  Eckardt  as  used  only  in 
Ezek.  xix.  6,  xxvi.  20,  and  four  times  in  Psalms. 

2  xii.  6,  n>nnn. 

^  The  text  reads  against  Judah,  as  if  it  with  Jerusalem  suffered 


48o  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

be  at  the  siege  of  Jerusalem.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass 
in  that  day  that  I  will  make  Jerusalem  a  stone  to  be 
lifted^  by  all  the  peoples — all  who  lift  it  do  indeed  wound ^ 
themselves — and  there  are  gathered  against  it  all  nations 
of  the  earth.  In  that  day — oracle  of  Jehovah — /  will 
smite  every  horse  with  panic^  and  their  riders  with  mad- 
ness; but  as  for  the  house  of  Judah,  I  will  open  its  ^ 
eyes,  though  every  horse  of  the  peoples  I  smite  with 
blindness.  Then  shall  the  chiefs  *  of  Judah  say  in  their 
hearts,  .  .  .^  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  through  Jehovah 
of  Hosts  their  God.  In  that  day  will  I  make  the  districts 
of  Judah  like  a  pan  of  fire  among  timber  and  like  a  torch 
among  sheaves,  so  that  they  devour  right  and  left  all  the 
peoples  round  about,  but  Jerusalem  shall  still  abide  on  its 


the  siege  of  the  heathen.  But  (i)  this  makes  an  unconstruable 
clause,  and  (2)  the  context  shows  that  Judah  was  against  Jerusalem. 
Therefore  Geiger  {Urschrift^  p.  58)  is  right  in  deleting  7^,  and  re- 
storing to  the  clause  both  sense  in  itself  and  harmony  with  the 
context.  It  is  easy  to  see  why  ?y  was  afterwards  introduced. 
LXX.  /cat  kv  Trj  'lovSaia. 

'  Since  Jerome,  commentators  have  thought  of  a  stone  by  throwing 
or  lifting  which  men  try  their  strength,  what  we  call  a  "putting 
stone."  But  is  not  the  idea  rather  of  one  of  the  large  stones  half- 
buried  in  the  earth  which  it  is  the  effort  of  the  husbandman  to  tear 
from  its  bed  and  carry  out  of  his  field  before  he  ploughs  it  ?  Keil 
and  Wright  think  of  a  heavy  stone  for  building.  This  is  not  so 
likely. 

^  t3*lS^,  elsewhere  only  in  Lev.  xxi.  5,  is  there  used  of  intentional 
cutting  of  oneself  as  a  sign  of  mourning.  Nowack  takes  the  clause 
as  a  later  intrusion ;  but  there  is  no  real  reason  for  this. 

^  Heb.  upon  Judah  voill  I  keep  My  eyes  open  to  protect  him,  and  this 
has  analogies,  Job  xiv.  3,  Jer.  xxxii.  19.  But  the  reading  its  eyes, 
which  is  made  by  inserting  a  1  that  might  easily  have  dropped  out 
through  confusion  with  the  initial  1  of  the  next  word,  has  also  analogies 
(Isa.  xlii.  7,  etc.),  and  stands  in  better  parallel  to  the  next  clause,  as 
well  as  to  the  clauses  describing  the  panic  of  the  heathen. 

'  Others  read  ""SPiSlj  thousands,  i.e.  districts. 

^  Heb,  /  will  find  me ;  LXX.  evp-qaoixtv  eavroXs. 


THE   CONTENTS   OF  ^'  ZECHARIAH"   IX.— XIV.      481 

own  site}  And  Jehovah  shall  first  give  victory  to  the 
tents  ^  ofjudahy  so  that  the  fame  of  the  house  of  David 
and  the  fame  of  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  be  not  too 
great  in  contrast  to  Judah. 

9.  Four  Results  of  Jerusalem's  Deliverance 
(xii.  8 — xiii.  6). 

Upon  the  deliverance  of  Jerusalem,  by  the  help  of 
the  converted  Judah,  there  follow  four  results,  each 
introduced  by  the  words  that  it  happened  in  that  day 
(xii.  8,  9,  xiii.  i,  2).  First,  the  people  of  Jerusalem 
shall  themselves  be  strengthened.  Second,  the  hostile 
heathen  shall  be  destroyed,  but  on  the  house  of  David 
and  all  Jerusalem  the  spirit  of  penitence  shall  be  poured, 
and  they  will  lament  for  the  good  shepherd  whom 
they  slew.  Third,  a  fountain  for  sin  and  uncleanness 
shall  be  opened.  Fourth,  the  idols,  the  unclean  spirit, 
and  prophecy,  now  so  degraded,  shall  all  be  abolished. 
The  connection  of  these  oracles  with  the  preceding 
is  obvious,  as  well  as  with  the  oracle  describing  the 
murder  of  the  good  shepherd  (xiii.  7-9).  When  we 
see  how  this  is  presupposed  by  xii.  9  if.,  we  feel  more 
than  ever  that  its  right  place  is  between  chaps,  xi.  and 
xii.  There  are  no  historical  allusions.  But  again  the 
language  gives  evidence  of  a  late  date.^  And  through- 
out the  passage  there  is  a  repetition  of  formal  phrases 

'  Hebrew  adds  a  gloss  :  in  Jerusalem. 

*  The  population  in  time  of  war. 

'  xii.  10,  ni"1  ^QK^,  not  earlier  than  Ezek.  xxxix.  29,  Joel  iii.  i,  2 
(Heb.)  ;  D^ilJnn,  only  in  Job,  Proverbs,  Psalms  and  Daniel;  "IDH, 
an  intrans.  Hiph. ;  xiii.  i,  TlpD,  fountain,  before  Jeremiah  only  in 
Hosea  xiii.  15  (perhaps  a  late  intrusion),  but  several  times  in  post- 
exilic  writings  instead  of  pre-exilic  "INH  (Eckardt)  ;  iTl^j  only  after 
Ezekiel ;  3,  cf.  xii,  10,  IpT,  chiefly,  but  not  only,  in  post-exilic 
writings. 

VOL.  U.  31 


i^ 


482  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

which  recalls  the  Priestly  Code  and  the  general  style  of 
the  post-exilic  age.^  Notice  that  no  king  is  mentioned, 
although  there  are  several  points  at  which,  had  he 
existed,  he  must  have  been  introduced. 

1.  The  first  of  the  four  effects  of  Jerusalem's  deliver- 
ance from  the  heathen  is  the  promotion  of  her  weaklings 
to  the  strength  of  her  heroes,  and  of  her  heroes  to 
divine  rank  (xii.  8).  In  that  day  Jehovah  will  pro- 
tect the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem^  and  the  lame  among 
them  shall  in  that  day  be  like  David  himself,  and  the 
house  of  David  like  God,  like  the  Angel  of  Jehovah 
before  them. 

2.  The  second  paragraph  of  this  series  very  remark- 
ably emphasises  that  upon  her  deliverance  Jerusalem 
shall  not  give  way  to  rejoicing,  but  to  penitent  lamenta- 
tion for  the  murder  of  him  whom  she  has  pierced — 
the  good  shepherd  whom  her  people  have  rejected  and 
slain.  This  is  one  of  the  few  ethical  strains  which  run 
through  these  apocalyptic  chapters..  It  forms  their 
highest  interest  for  us.  Jerusalem's  mourning  is  com- 
pared to  that  for  Hadad-Rimmon  in  the  valley  or  plain 
of  Megiddo.  This  is  the  classic  battle-field  of  the  land, 
and  the  theatre  upon  which  Apocalypse  has  placed  the 
last  contest  between  the  hosts  of  God  and  the  hosts 
of  evil.'^  In  Israel's  history  it  had  been  the  ground 
not  only  of  triumph  but  of  tears.  The  greatest  tragedy 
of  that  history,  the  defeat  and  death  of  the  righteous 
Josiah,  took  place  there ;  ^  and  since  the  earliest  Jewish 
interpreters   the   mourning  of  Hadad-Rimmon   in   the 


1  See  especially  xii.   12  ff.,  which  is  very  suggestive  of  the  Priestly 
Code. 

Hist.    Geog.,   Chap.  XIX.     On  the  name  plain   of  Megiddo   see 
especially  notes,  p.  386. 

^  2  Chron.  xxxv,  22  ff, 


THE  CONTENTS  OF  ^'ZECHARIAH'  IX.— XIV.      483 

valley  of  Megiddo  has  been  referred  to  the  mourning 
for  Josiah.^  Jerome  identifies  Hadad-Rimmon  with 
Rummani,^  a  village  on  the  plain  still  extant,  close  to 
Megiddo.  But  the  lamentation  for  Josiah  was  at 
Jerusalem  ;  and  it  cannot  be  proved  that  Hadad-Rimmon 
is  a  place-name.  It  may  rather  be  the  name  of  the 
object  of  the  mourning,  and  as  Hadad  was  a  divine 
name  among  Phcenicians  and  Arameans,  and  Rimmon 
the  pomegranate  was  a  sacred  tree,  a  number  of  critics 
have  supposed  this  to  be  a  title  of  Adonis,  and  the 
mourning  like  that  excessive  grief  which  Ezekiel  tells 
us  was  yearly  celebrated  for  Tammuz.^  This,  how- 
ever, is  not  fully  proved.^  Observe,  further,  that  while 
the  reading  Hadad-Rimmon  is  by  no  means  past  doubt, 
the  sanguine  blossoms  and  fruit  of  the  pomegranate, 
*' red-ripe  at  the  heart,"  would  naturally  lead  to  its 
association  with  the  slaughtered  Adonis. 

And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  that  day  that  I  will 
seek  to  destroy  all  the  nations  who  have  come  in  upon 
Jerusalem.  And  I  will  pour  upon  the  house  of  David 
and  upon  all  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  the  spirit  of 
grace  and  of  supplication^  and  they  shall  look  to  him^ 
whom  they  have  pierced;  and  they  shall  lament  for  him, 
as  with  lamentation  for  an  only  son,  and  bitterly  grieve 
for  him,  as  with  grief  for  a  first-born.  In  that  day 
lamentation  shall  be  as  great  in  Jerusalem  as  the  lamenta- 

'  Another  explanation  offered  by  the  Targum  is  the  mourning  for 
"  Ahab  son  of  Omri,  slain  by  Hadad-Rimmon  son  of  Tab-Rimmon." 

'  LXX.  gives  for  Hadad-Rimmon  only  the  second  part,  podv. 

'  Ezek.  viii.  14. 

*  Baudissin,  Studien  z.  Sent.  Rel.  Gesch.,  I,  295  ff. 

^  Heb.  Me ;  several  codd.  him  :  some  read  vN^  to  (him)  whom 
they  have  pierced ;  but  this  would  require  the  elision  of  the  sign  of 
the  ace.  before  who.  Wellhausen  and  others  think  something  has 
fallen  from  the  text. 


484  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

tion  for  Hadad-Rimmon  ^  in  the  valley  of  Megiddo. 
And  the  land  shall  mourn,  every  family  by  itself:  the 
family  of  the  house  of  David  by  itself  and  their  wives 
by  themselves;  the  family  of  the  house  of  Nathan  by 
itself  and  their  wives  by  themselves;  the  family  of  the 
house  of  Levi  by  itself  and  their  wives  by  themselves; 
the  family  of  Shimei'^  by  itself  and  their  wives  by  them- 
selves; all  the  families  who  are  left,  every  family  by 
itself  and  their  wives  by  themselves. 

3.  The  third  result  of  Jerusalem's  deliverance  from 
the  heathen  shall  be  the  opening  of  a  fountain  of 
cleansing.  This  purging  of  her  sin  follows  fitly  upon 
her  penitence  just  described.  In  that  day  a  fountain 
shall  be  opened  for  the  house  of  David,  and  for  the 
inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  for  sin  and  for  uncleanness} 

4.  The  fourth  consequence  is  the  removal  of  idolatry, 
of  the  unclean  spirit  and  of  the  degraded  prophets  from 
her  midst.  The  last  is  especially  remarkable :  for 
it  is  not  merely  false  prophets,  as  distinguished  from 
true,  who  shall  be  removed  ;  but  prophecy  in  general. 
It  is  singular  that  in  almost  its  latest  passage  the  pro- 
phecy of  Israel  should  return  to  the  line  of  its  earliest 
representative,  Amos,  who  refused  to  call  himself 
prophet.  As  in  his  day,  the  prophets  had  become 
mere  professional  and  mercenary  oracle-mongers, 
abjured  to  the  point  of  death  by  their  own  ashamed 
and  wearied  relatives. 

And  it  shall  be  in  that  day — oracle  of  Jehovah  of 
Hosts — /  will  cut  off  the  names  of  the  idols  from  the 
land,  and  they  shall  not  be  remembered  any  more.  And 
also   the  prophets   and  the   unclean   spirit  will  I  expel 


'  See  above,  p.  482,  ^  Cf.  Ezek.  xxxvi.  25,  xlvii,  I, 

2  LXX.  Su/tec6»'. 


THE  CONTENTS   OF  '' ZECHARIAH"   IX.— XIV.      485 

from  the  land.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  if  any  man 
prophesy  again,  then  shall  his  father  and  mother  who 
begat  him  say  to  him,  Thou  shalt  not  live,  for  thou 
speakest  falsehood  in  the  name  of  Jehovah;  and  his 
father  and  mother  who  begat  him  shall  stab  him  for  his 
prophesying.  And  it  shall  be  in  that  day  that  the 
prophets  shall  be  ashamed  of  their  visions  when  they 
prophesy,  and  shall  not  wear  the  leather  cloak  in  order 
to  lie.  And  he  will  say.  No  prophet  am  I!  A  tiller 
of  the  ground  I  am,  for  the  ground  is  my  possession  ^ 
from  my  youth  up.  And  they  shall  say  to  him.  What 
are  these  wounds  in  ^  thy  hands  ?  and  he  shall  say. 
What  I  was  wounded  with  in  the  house  of  my  lovers  ! 

10.   Judgment  of  the  Heathen  and   Sanctifi cation 
OF  Jerusalem  (xiv.). 

In  another  apocalyptic  vision  the  prophet  beholds 
Jerusalem  again  beset  by  the  heathen.  But  Jehovah 
Himself  intervenes,  appearing  in  person,  and  an 
earthquake  breaks  out  at  His  feet.  The  heathen  are 
smitten,  as  they  stand,  into  mouldering  corpses.  The 
remnant  of  them  shall  be  converted  to  Jehovah  and 
take  part  in  the  annual  Feast  of  Booths.  If  any  refuse 
they  shall  be  punished  with  drought.  But  Jerusalem 
shall  abide  in  security  and  holiness  :  every  detail  of  her 
equipment  shall  be  consecrate.  The  passage  has  many 
resemblances  to  the  preceding  oracles.^  The  language 
is  undoubtedly  late,  and  the  figures  are  borrowed  from 
other  prophets,  chiefly  Ezekiel.  It  is  a  characteristic 
specimen  of  the  Jewish  Apocalypse.  The  destruction 
of  the  heathen  is  described  in  verses  of  terrible  grim- 


/ 


'  Read  >J>:)i5  HD'IK  for  the  Mass.  ^'^^^r\  DIX :  so  Wellhausen. 
*  Heb.  hetwetn.  '  But  see  below,  p,  490. 


486  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

ness :  there  is  no  tenderness  nor  hope  exhibited  for 
them.  And  even  in  the  picture  of  Jerusalem's  holiness 
we  have  no  really  ethical  elements,  but  the  details 
are  purely  ceremonial. 

Lo  !  a  day  is  coming  for  Jehovah,^  when  thy  spoil  will 
be  divided  in  thy  midst.  And  I  will  gather  all  the  nations 
to  besiege  Jerusalem,  and  the  city  will  be  taken  and  the 
houses  plundered  and  the  women  ravished,  and  the  half 
of  the  city  shall  go  into  captivity,  but  the  rest  of  the  people 
shall  not  be  cut  off  from  the  city.  And  Jehovah  shall 
go  forth  and  do  battle  with  those  nations,  as  in  the  day 
when  He  fought  in  the  day  of  contest.  And  His  feet  shall 
stand  in  that  day  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  which  is  over 
against  Jerusalem  on  the  east,  and  the  Mount  of  Olives 
shall  be  split  into  halves  from  east  to  west  by  a  very  great 
ravine,  and  half  of  the  Mount  will  slide  northwards  and 
half  southwards.  .  .  .  ,^  for  the  ravine  of  mountains^  shall 
extend  to  'Asal,^  and  ye  shall  flee  as  ye  fled  from  before 
the  earthquake  in  the  days  of  Uzziah  king  of  Judah^ 
and  Jehovah  my  God  will  come  and^  all  the  holy  ones 
with  HimI    And  in  that  day  there  shall  not  be  light,  .  .  . 

*  nin V :  or  belonging  to  Jehovah ;  or  like  the  Lamed  auctoris  or 
Lamed  when  construed  with  passive  verbs  (see  Oxford  Heb.-Eng. 
Dictionary,  pp.  513  and  514,  col.  i),  from,  by  means  of,  Jehovah. 

2  Heb. :  and  ye  shall  flee,  the  ravine  of  My  mountains.  The  text 
is  obviously  corrupt,  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  should  be  repaired. 
LXX.,  Targ.  Symmachus  and  the  Babylonian  codd.  (Baer,  p.  84) 
read  DJ!lpJ"|,  shall  be  closed,  for  DPlD^lj  ye  shall  flee,  and  this  is  adopted 
by  a  number  of  critics  (Bredenkamp,  Wellhausen,  Nowack).  But  it 
is  hardly  possible  before  the  next  clause,  which  says  the  valley 
extends  to  'Asal. 

^  Wellhausen  suggests  the  ravine  (^5^i)  of  Hinnom. 

*  7V^5,  place-name :  cf.  ?VXj  name  of  a  family  of  Benjamin,  viii. 
37f.,ix.  43f.;  and  ?VXn  n^3,  Micah  i.  11.  Some  would  read  P^N, 
the  adverb  near  by, 

*  Amos  i.  I.  «  LXX.  '  LXX. ;  Heb.  thee. 


THE  CONTENTS   OF  ''ZECHARIAW   IX.— XIV.     487 

congeal}  And  it  shall  be  one  ^  day — it  is  knoivn  to 
Jehovah^ — neither  day  nor  night;  and  it  shall  come  to 
pass  that  at  evening  time  there  shall  be  light. 

And  it  shall  be  in  that  day  that  living  waters  shall  flow 
forth  from  Jerusalem,  half  of  them  to  the  eastern  sea  and 
half  of  them  to  the  western  sea :  both  in  summer  and 
in  winter  shall  it  be.  And  Jehovah  shall  be  King  over 
all  the  earth  :  in  that  day  Jehovah  will  be  One  and  His 
Name  One.  All  the  land  shall  be  changed  to  plain  f"  from 
Geba  to  Rimmon^  south  of  Jerusalem;  but  she  shall  be 
high  and  abide  in  her  place  ^  from  the  Gate  of  Benjamin 
up  to  the  place  of  the  First  Gate,  up  to  the  Corner  Gate, 
and  from  the  Tower  of  Hananel  as  far  as  the  Kin^s 
Winepresses.  And  they  shqll  dwell  in  it,  and  there 
shall  be  no  more  Ban,'  and  Jerusalem  shall  abide  in 
security.  And  this  shall  be  the  stroke  with  which  Jehovah 
will  smite  all  the  peoples  who  have  warred  against 
Jerusalem :  He  will  make  their  flesh  moulder  while  they 
still  stand  upon  their  feet,  and  their  eyes  shall  moulder 

1  Heb.  Kethibh  j-IXSp^  ^^"'i^^  jewels  (?  hardly  stars  as  some 
have  sought  to  prove  from  Job  xxxi.  26)  grow  dead  or  congealed' 
Heb.  Ker6,  jewels  and  frost,  \\^^\>\,  LXX.  koX  \pixn  kuI  Trdyos, 
fli^Sj!?'!  n-11(5")j  and  cold  and  frost.  Founding  on  this  Wellhausen 
proposes  to  read  DIR  for  ^IN,  and  renders,  there  shall  be  neither 
heat  nor  cold  nor  frost.  So  Nowack.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how 
Din  ever  got  changed  to  lix. 

^  Unique  or  the  same  ? 

'  Taken  as  a  gloss  by  Wellhausen  and  Nowack. 

^  ni'lj^j  the  name  for  the  Jordan  Valley,  the  Ghor  {Hist.  Geog., 
pp.  482-484).  It  is  employed,  not  because  of  its  fertility,  but  because 
of  its  level  character.  Cf.  Josephus'  name  for  it,  "  the  Great  Plain  " 
(IV.  Wars  viii.  2 ;  IV.  Antt.  vi.  i)  :  also  i  Mace.  v.  52,  xvi.  11. 

^  Geba  "long  the  limit  of  Judah  to  the  north,  2  Kings  xxiii.  8" 
{Hist.  Geog.,  pp.  252,  291).  Rimmon  was  on  the  southern  border  of 
Palestine  (Josh.  xv.  32,  xix.  7),  the  present  Umm  er  Rummamin  N. 
of  Beersheba  (Rob.,  B.  R.). 

«  Or  be  inhabited  as  it  stands.  '  Cf.  "  Mai."  iii.  24  (Heb.). 


THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 


in  their  sockets^  and  their  tongue  shall  moulder  in  their 
mouth. 

[And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  that  day,  there  shall  be 
a  great  confusion  from  Jehovah  among  them,  and  they 
shall  grasp  every  man  the  hand  of  his  neighbour,  and  his 
hand  shall  be  lifted  against  the  hand  of  his  neighbour} 
And  even  Judah  shall  fight  against  Jerusalem,  and  the 
wealth  of  all  the  nations  round  about  shall  be  swept  up, 
gold  and  silver  and  garments,  in  a  very  great  mass. 
These  two  verses,  13  and  14,  obviously  disturb  the 
connection,  which  ver.  15  as  obviously  resumes  with 
ver,  12.  They  are,  therefore,  generally  regarded  as  an 
intrusion.^  But  why  they  have  been  inserted  is  not 
clear.  Ver.  14  is  a  curious  echo  of  the  strife  between 
Judah  and  Jerusalem  described  in  chap.  xii.  They 
may  be  not  a  mere  intrusion,  but  simply  out  of  their 
proper  place  :  yet,  if  so,  where  this  proper  place  lies  in 
these  oracles  is  impossible  to  determine.] 

And  even  so  shall  be  the  plague  upon  the  horses,  mules, 
camels  and  asses,  and  all  the  beasts  which  are  in  those 
camps — -just  like  this  plague.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass 
that  all  that  survive  of  all  the  nations  who  have  come  up 
against  Jerusalem,  shall  come  up  from  year  to  year  to  do 
obeisance  to  King  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  and  to  keep  the  Feast 
of  Booths.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  whosoever  of 
all  the  races  of  the  earth  will  not  come  up  to  Jerusalem 
to  do  obeisance  to  King  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  upon  them 
there  shall  be  no  rain.  And  if  the  race  of  Egypt  go  not 
up  nor  come  in,  upon  them  also  shalP  come  the  plague, 
with  which  Jehovah  shall  strike  the  nations  that  go  not 


'  Ezek.  xxxviii.  21. 

'  So  Wellhausen  and  Nowack. 

^  So  LXX.  and  Syr.     The  Heb.  text  inserts  a  not. 


THE  CONTENTS   OF  "ZECHARIAH"  IX.— XIV.     489 

Up  to  keep  the  Feast  of  Booths.  Such  shall  be  the 
punishment^  of  Egypt ^  and  the  punishment^  of  all  nations 
who  do  not  come  up  to  keep  the  Feast  of  Booths. 

The  Feast  of  Booths  was  specially  one  of  thanksgiving 
for  the  harvest;  that  is  why  the  neglect  of  it  is 
punished  by  the  withholding  of  the  rain  which  brings 
the  harvest.  But  such  a  punishment  for  such  a  neglect 
shows  how  completely  prophecy  has  become  subject 
to  the  Law.  One  is  tempted  to  think  what  Amos 
or  Jeremiah  or  even  "  Malachi  "  would  have  thought  of 
this.  Verily  all  the  writers  of  the  prophetical  books 
do  not  stand  upon  the  same  level  of  religion.  The 
writer  remembers  that  the  curse  of  no  rain  cannot 
affect  the  Egyptians,  the  fertility  of  whose  rainless  land 
is  secured  by  the  annual  floods  of  her  river.  So  he 
has  to  insert  a  special  verse  for  Egypt.  She  also  will 
be  plagued  by  Jehovah,  yet  he  does  not  tell  us  in  what 
fashion  her  plague  will  come. 

The  book  closes  with  a  little  oracle  of  the  most 
ceremonial  description,  connected  not  only  in  temper 
but  even  by  subject  with  what  has  gone  before.  The 
very  horses,  which  hitherto  have  been  regarded  as 
too  foreign,^  or — as  even  in  this  group  of  oracles ' — 
as  too  warlike,  to  exist  in  Jerusalem,  shall  be  conse- 
crated to  Jehovah.  And  so  vast  shall  be  the  multitudes 
who  throng  from  all  the  earth  to  the  annual  feasts  and 
sacrifices  at  the  Temple,  that  the  pots  of  the  latter 
shall  be  as  large  as  the  great  altar-bowls,*  and 
every  pot  in  Jerusalem  and  Judah  shall  be  consecrated 
for  use  in  the  ritual.     This  hallowing  of  the   horses 

'  nt^Dn,  in  classic  Heb.  sin ;  but  as  in  Num.  xxxii.  23  and 
Isa.  V.  18,  the  punishment  that  sin  brings  down. 

'  Hosea  xiv.  3.  *  So  Wellhausen. 

'  ix.  10. 


490  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

raises  the  question,  whether  the  passage  can  be  from 
the  same  hand  as  wrote  the  prediction  of  the  dis- 
appearance of  all  horses  from  Jerusalem.^ 

In  that  day  there  shall  be  upon  the  bells  of  the  horses^ 
Holiness  unto  Jehovah.  And  the  very  pots  in  the  House 
of  Jehovah  shall  be  as  the  bowls  before  the  altar.  Yea^ 
every  pot  in  Jerusalem  and  in  Judah  shall  be  holy  to 
Jehovah  of  Hosts,  and  all  who  sacrifice  shall  come  and 
take  of  them  and  cook  in  them.  And  there  shall  be  no 
more  any  pedlar"^  in  the  House  of  Jehovah  of  Hosts  in 
that  day. 


'    IX.    lO. 

'  Heb.  Canaanite.     Cf.  Christ's  action  in  cleansing  the  Temple  of 
all  dealers  (Matt.  xxi.  12-14). 


JONAH 


491 


"  And  this  is  the  tragedy  of  the  Book  of  Jonah,  that  a  Book  which 
is  made  the  means  of  one  of  the  most  subUme  revelations  of  truth 
in  the  Old  Testament  should  be  known  to  most  only  for  its  con- 
nection with  a  whale." 


492 


CHAPTER    XXXIV 

THE    BOOK     OF   JONAH 

THE  Book  of  Jonah  is  cast  throughout  in  the  form 
of  narrative — the  only  one  of  our  Twelve  which  is 
so.  This  fact,  combined  with  the  extraordinary  events 
which  the  narrative  relates,  starts  questions  not  raised  by 
any  of  the  rest.  Besides  treating,  therefore,  of  the  book's 
origin,  unity,  division  and  other  commonplaces  of  intro- 
duction, we  must  further  seek  in  this  chapter  reasons 
for  the  appearance  of  such  a  narrative  among  a  collection 
of  prophetic  discourses.  We  have  to  ask  whether  the 
narrative  be  intended  as  one  of  fact ;  and  if  not,  why 
the  author  was  directed  to  the  choice  of  such  a  form  to 
enforce  the  truth  committed  to  him. 

The  appearance  of  a  narrative  among  the  Twelve 
Prophets  is  not,  in  itself,  so  exceptional  as  it  seems  to 
be.  Parts  of  the  Books  of  Amos  and  Hosea  treat  of  the 
personal  experience  of  their  authors.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  Books  of  Isaiah,  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  in  which 
the  prophet's  call  and  his  attitude  to  it  are  regarded  as 
elements  of  his  message  to  men.  No  :  the  peculiarity 
of  the  Book  of  Jonah  is  not  the  presence  of  narrative, 
but  the  apparent  absence  of  all  prophetic  discourse.^ 

Yet  even  this  might  be  explained  by  reference  to  the 
first   part   of  the  prophetic  canon — Joshua   to   Second 

*   Unless  the  Psalm  were  counted  as  such.     See  below,  p.  511. 
493 


494  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Kings. ^  These  Former  Prophets,  as  they  are  called,  are 
wholly  narrative — narrative  in  the  prophetic  spirit  and 
written  to  enforce  a  moral.  Many  of  them  begin  as  the 
Book  of  Jonah  does  :  ^  they  contain  stories,  for  instance, 
of  Elijah  and  EHsha,  who  flourished  immediately  before 
Jonah  and  like  him  were  sent  with  commissions  to 
foreign  lands.  It  might  therefore  be  argued  that  the 
Book  of  Jonah,  though  narrative,  is  as  much  a  prophetic 
book  as  they  are,  and  that  the  only  reason  why  it  has 
found  a  place,  not  with  these  histories,  but  among  the 
Later  Prophets,  is  the  exceedingly  late  date  of  its 
composition.^ 

This  is  a  plausible,  but  not  the  real,  answer  to  our 
question.  Suppose  we  were  to  find  the  latter  by 
discovering  that  the  Book  of  Jonah,  though  in  narrative 
form,  is  not  real  history  at  all,  nor  pretends  to  be; 
but,  from  beginning  to  end,  is  as  much  a  prophetic 
sermon  as  any  of  the  other  Twelve  Books,  yet  cast 
in  the  form  of  parable  or  allegory?  This  would 
certainly  explain  the  adoption  of  the  book  among  the 
Twelve ;  nor  would  its  allegorical  character  appear 
without  precedent  to  those  (and  they  are  among  the 
most  conservative  of  critics)  who  maintain  (as  the 
present  writer  does  not)  the  allegorical  character  of 
the  story  of  Hosea's  wife.^ 

It  is,  however,  when  we  pass  from  the  form  to  the 
substance  of  the  book  that  we  perceive  the  full  justifi- 
cation of  its  reception  among  the  prophets.     The  truth 


*  Minus  Ruth  of  course. 

"^  Cf.  with  Jonah  i.  i,  ^'^^5^  Josh.  i.  i,  i  Sam.  i,  I,  2  Sam.  i.  i. 
The  corrupt  state  of  the  text  of  Ezek.  i.  i  does  not  permit  us  to 
adduce  it  also  as  a  parallel. 

^  See  below,  p.  496. 

*  See  above,  Vol.  I.,  p.  236. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JONAH  495 

which  we  find  in  the  Book  of  Jonah  is  as  full  and 
fresh  a  revelation  of  God's  will  as  prophecy  anywhere 
achieves.  That  God  has  granted  to  the  Gentiles  also 
repentance  unto  life  ^  is  nowhere  else  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment so  vividly  illustrated.  It  lifts  the  teaching  of  the 
Book  of  Jonah  to  equal  rank  with  the  second  part  of 
Isaiah,  and  nearest  of  all  our  Twelve  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  very  form  in  which  this  truth  is  insinuated 
into  the  prophet's  reluctant  mind,  by  contrasting  God's 
pity  for  the  dim  population  of  Niniveh  with  Jonah's  own 
pity  for  his  perished  gourd,  suggests  the  methods  of  our 
Lord's  teaching,  and  invests  the  book  with  the  morning 
air  of  that  high  day  which  shines  upon  the  most 
evangelic  of  His  parables. 

One  other  remark  is  necessary.  In  our  effort  to 
appreciate  this  lofty  gospel  we  labour  under  a  dis- 
advantage. That  is  our  sense  of  humour — our  modern 
sense  of  humour.  Some  of  the  figures  in  which 
our  author  conveys  his  truth  cannot  but  appear  to 
us  grotesque.  How  many  have  missed  the  sublime 
spirit  of  the  book  in  amusement  or  offence  at  its 
curious  details  1  Even  in  circles  in  which  the  ac- 
ceptance of  its  literal  interpretation  has  been  demanded 
as  a  condition  of  belief  in  its  inspiration,  the  story  has 
too  often  served  as  a  subject  for  humorous  remarks. 
This  is  almost  inevitable  if  we  take  it  as  history.  But 
we  shall  find  that  one  advantage  of  the  theory,  which 
treats  the  book  as  parable,  is  that  the  features,  which 
appear  so  grotesque  to  many,  are  traced  to  the 
popular  poetry  of  the  writer's  own  time  and  shown 
to  be  natural.  When  we  prove  this,  we  shall  be  able 
to   treat  the   scenery  of  the  book  as  we  do  that    of 

'  Acts  xi.  8. 


496  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

some  early  Christian  fresco,  in  which,  however  rude 
it  be  or  untrue  to  nature,  we  discover  an  earnestness 
and  a  success  in  expressing  the  moral  essence  of  a 
situation  that  are  not  always  present  in  works  of  art 
more  skilful  or  more  correct. 

I.  The  Date  of  the  Book. 

Jonah  ben-Amittai,  from  Gath-hepher^  in  Galilee, 
I  came  forward  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
J  Jeroboam  II.  to  announce  that  the  king  would  regain 
the  lost  territories  of  Israel  from  the  Pass  of  Hamath 
to  the  Dead  Sea.^  He  flourished,  therefore,  about 
780,  and  had  this  book  been  by  himself  we  should 
have  had  to  place  it  first  of  all  the  Twelve,  and  nearly 
a  generation  before  that  of  Amos.  But  the  book 
neither  claims  to  be  by  Jonah,  nor  gives  any  proof  of 
coming  from  an  eye-witness  of  the  adventures  which 
it  describes,^  nor  even  from  a  contemporary  of  the 
prophet.  On  the  contrary,  one  verse  implies  that  when 
it  was  written  Niniveh  had  ceased  to  be  a  great  city.* 
Now  Niniveh  fell,  and  was  practically  destroyed,  in 
606  B.c.^  In  all  ancient  history  there  was  no  collapse 
of  an  imperial  city  more  sudden  or  so  complete.®  We 
must  therefore  date  the  Book  of  Jonah  some  time  after 
606,  when  Niniveh's  greatness  had  become  what  it 
was  to  the  Greek  writers,  a  matter  of  tradition. 

*  Cf.  Gittah-hepher,  Josh.  xix.  13,  by  some  held  to  be  El  Meshhed, 
three  miles  north-east  of  Nazareth.  The  tomb  of  Jonah  is  pointed 
out  there. 

"^  2  Kings  xiv.  25. 

*  Cf.  Kuenen,  Einl.,  II.  417,  418. 

*  iii.  3  :   nrrri,  was. 

*  See  above,  pp.  2 1  ff .,  96  ff. 

*  Cf.  George  Smith,  Assyrian  Discoveries,  p.  94 ;  Sayce,  Ancient 
Empires  of  the  East,  p.  141.     Cf.  previous  note. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JONAH  497 


A  late  date  is  also  proved  by  the  language  of 
the  book.  This  not  only  contains  Aramaic  elements 
which  have  been  cited  to  support  the  argument  for  a 
northern  origin  in  the  time  of  Jonah  himself,^  but  a 
number  of  words  and  grammatical  constructions  which 
we  find  in  the  Old  Testament,  some  of  them  in  the 
later  and  some  only  in  the  very  latest  writings.^ 
Scarcely  less  decisive  are  a  number  of  apparent  quota- 
tions and  echoes  of  passages  in  the  Old  Testament, 
mostly  later  than  the  date  of  the  historical  Jonah,  and 

•  As,  e.g.,  by  Volck,  article  "Jona"  in  Herzog's  Real.  Encycl?:  the 
use  of  y3  for  "^^^  as,  e.g.,  in  the  very  early  Song  of  Deborah.  But 
the  same  occurs  in  many  late  passages :  Eccles.  i.  7,  1 1,  ii.  21,  22,  etc. ; 
Psalms  cxxii.,  cxxiv.,  cxxxv.  2,  8,  cxxxvii.  8,  cxlvi.  3. 

-  A.  Grammatical  constructions  :— i.  7,  '•p?^3  ;  12,  ''p^*2  ;  that  h^l 
has  not  altogether  displaced  ?TkJ^i<2  Konig'(£m/.,  378)  thinks  a 
proof  of  the  date  of  Jonah  in  the  early  Aramaic  period,  iv.  6,  the  use 
of  i?  for  the  accusative,  cf.  Jer.  xl.  2,  Ezra  viii.  24 :  seldom  in  earlier 
Hebrew,  i  Sam.  xxiii.  10,  2  Sam.  iii.  30,  especially  when  the  object 
stands  before  the  verb,  Isa.  xi.  9  (this  may  be  late),  i  Sam.  xxii.  7, 
Job  v.  2;  but  continually  in  Aramaic,  Dan.  ii.  10,  12,  14,  24,  etc. 
The  first  personal  pronoun  '•JJ<  (five  times)  occurs  oftener  than 
••DJX  (twice),  just  as  in  all  exilic  and  post-exilic  writings.  The 
numerals  ii.   i,  iii.  3,  precede  the  noun,  as  in  earlier  Hebrew. 

B.  Words : — ilJO  in  Pi.  is  a  favourite  term  of  our  author,  ii.  i, 
iv.  6,  8 ;  is  elsewhere  in  O.T.  Hebrew  found  only  in  Dan.  i.  5,  10, 

18,  I  Chron.  ix.  29,  Psalm  Ixi.  8 ;  but  in  O.T.  Aramaic  X3D  Pi. 
••DD  occurs  in  Ezra  vii.  25,  Dan.  ii.  24,  49,  iii.  12,  etc.  X\y'^'0,  i.  5, 
is  not  elsewhere  found  in  O.T.,  but  is  common  in  later  Hebrew 
and  in  Aramaic.  1W^T\T\,  i.  6,  to  think,  for  the  Heb.  I^n,  cf.  Psalm 
cxlvi.  4,  but  Aram.  cf.  Dan.  vi.  4  and  Targums.  DVD  in  the-  sense 
to  order  or  command,  iii.  7,  is  found  elsewhere  in  the  O.T.  only  in 
the  Aramaic  passages  Dan.  iii.  10,  Ezra  vi.  i,  etc.  131,  iv.  11,  for 
the  earlier  nil"!  occurs  only  in  later  Hebrew,  Ezra  ii.  64,  Neh.  vii. 
66,  72,  I  Chron.  xxix.  7  (Hosea  viii.  12,  Kethibh  is  suspected), 
pn^,  i.  II,  12,  occurs  only  in  Psalm  cvii.  30,  Prov.  xxvi.  20.  ^)0y, 
iv.  10,  instead  of  the  usual  y3\  The  expression  God  of  Heaven, 
i.  9,  occurs  only  2  Chron.  xxxvi.  23,  Psalm  cxxxvi.  26,  Dan.  ii.  18, 

19,  44,  and  frequently  in  Ezra  and  Nehemiah. 

VOL.  II.  32 


498  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

some  of  them  even  later  than  the  Exile. ^  If  it  could 
be  proved  that  the  Book  of  Jonah  quotes  from  Joel, 
that  would  indeed  set  it  down  to  a  very  late  date — 
.  /probably  about  300  B.C.,  the  period  of  the  composition 
^  of  Ezra-Nehemiah,  with  the  language  of  which  its 
own  shows  most  affinity.^  This  would  leave  time  for 
its  reception  into  the  Canon  of  the  Prophets,  which 
was  closed  by  200  b.c.^  Had  the  book  been  later  it 
would  undoubtedly  have  fallen,  like  Daniel,  within  the 
Hagiographa. 

2.  The  Character  of  the  Book. 

Nor  does  this  book,  written  so  many  centuries  after 
Jonah  had  passed  away,  claim  to  be  real  history.  On 
the  contrary,  it  offers  to  us  all  the  marks  of  the  parable 
or   allegory.     We  have,  first  of  all,  the  residence   of 


1  In  chap.  iv.  there  are  undoubted  echoes  of  the  story  of  Elijah's 
depression  in  i  Kings  xix.,  though  the  alleged  parallel  between 
Jonah's  tree  (iv.  8)  and  Elijah's  broom-bush  seems  to  me  forced, 
iv.  9  has  been  thought,  though  not  conclusively,  to  depend  on  Gen. 
iv.  6,  and  the  appearance  of  DTl^N  nin''  has  been  referred  to  its 
frequent  use  in  Gen.  ii.  f.  More  important  are  the  parallels  with 
Joel :  iii.  9  with  Joel  ii.  14^,  and  the  attributes  of  God  in  iv.  2  with 
Joel  ii.  13.     But  which  of  the  two  is  the  original? 

-  Kleinert  assigns  the  book  to  the  Exile ;  Ewald  to  the  fifth  or  sixth 
century;  Driver  to  the  fifth  century  {Introd.^,  301) ;  Orelli  to  the  last 
Chaldean  or  first  Persian  age ;  Vatke  to  the  third  century.  These  assign 
generally  to  after  the  Exile  :  Cheyne  {Theol.  Rev.,  XIV.,  p.  218  :  cf.  art. 
"Jonah"  in  the  Encycl.  Brit.),  K6nig  (Einl.),  Rob.  Smith,  Kuenen, 
Wildeboer,  Budde,  Cornill,  Farrar,  etc.  Hitzig  brings  it  down  as 
far  as  the  Maccabean  age,  which  is  impossible  if  the  prophetic  canon 
closed  in  200  b.c,  and  seeks  for  its  origin  in  Egypt,  "  that  land  of 
wonders,"  on  account  of  its  fabulous  character,  and  because  of  the 
description  of  the  east  wind  as  n^tJ'nn  (iv.  8),  and  the  name  of  the 
gourd,  \'\''p''p,  Egyptian  kikt.  But  such  a  wind  and  such  a  plant  were 
found  outside  Egypt  as  well.  Nowack  dates  the  book  after  Joel. 
3  See  above,  Vol.  I.,  p.  5. 


THE  BOOK   OF  JONAH  499 

Jonah  for  the  conventional  period  of  three  days  and 
three  nights  in  the  belly  of  the  great  fish,  a  story  not 
only  very  extraordinary  in  itself  and  sufficient  to  pro- 
voke the  suspicion  of  allegory  (we  need  not  stop  to 
argue  this),  but  apparently  woven,  as  we  shall  see/ 
from  the  materials  of  a  myth  well  known  to  the  Hebrews. 
We  have  also  the  very  general  account  of  Niniveh's 
conversion,  in  which  there  is  not  even  the  attempt  to 
describe  any  precise  event.  The  absence  of  precise 
data  is  indeed  conspicuous  throughout  the  book.  "  The 
author  neglects  a  multitude  of  things,  which  he  would 
have  been  obliged  to  mention  had  history  been  his 
principal  aim.  He  says  nothing  of  the  sins  of  which 
Niniveh  was  guilty,'^  nor  of  the  journey  of  the  prophet 
to  Niniveh,  nor  does  he  mention  the  place  where  he 
was  cast  out  upon  the  land,  nor  the  name  of  the 
Assyrian  king.  In  any  case,  if  the  narrative  were 
intended  to  be  historical,  it  would  be  incomplete  by 
the  frequent  fact,  that  circumstances  which  are  neces- 
sary for  the  connection  of  events  are  mentioned  later 
than  they  happened,  and  only  where  attention  has  to 
be  directed  to  them  as  having  already  happened."  ^ 
We  find,  too,  a  number  of  trifling  discrepancies,  from 
which  some  critics  *  have  attempted  to  prove  the  pre- 
sence of  more  than  one  story  in  the  composition  of  the 
book,  but  which  are  simply  due  to  the  license  a  writer 
allows  himself  when  he  is  telling  a  tale  and  not  writing 
a  history.     Above  all,  there  is  the  abrupt  close  to  the 


'  Below,  pp.  523  ff. 

-  Contrast  the  treatment  of  foreign  states  by  Elisha,  Amos  and 
Isaiah,  etc. 

^  Abridged  from  pp.  3  and  4  of  Kleinert's  Introduction  to  the  Book 
of  Jonah  in  Lange's  Series  of  Commentaries.     Eng.  cd.,  Vol.  XVI. 

*  KOhler,  Theol.  Rev.,  Vol.  XVI. ;  Bohme,  Z.A.T.W.,  1887,  pp.  224  ff. 


50O  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Story  at  the  very  moment  at  which  its  moral  is  obvious.^ 
All  these  things  are  symptoms  of  the  parable — so 
obvious  and  so  natural,  that  we  really  sin  against  the 
intention  of  the  author,  and  the  purpose  of  the  Spirit 
which  inspired  him,  when  we  wilfully  interpret  the 
book  as  real  history.^ 

3.  The  Purpose  of  the  Book. 

The  general  purpose  of  this  parable  is  very  clear. 
It  is  not,  as  some  have  maintained,^  to  explain  why 

'  Indeed  throughout  the  book  the  truths  it  enforces  are  always 
more  pushed  to  the  front  than  the  facts. 

-  Nearly  all  the  critics  who  accept  the  late  date  of  the  book 
interpret  it  as  parabolic.  See  also  a  powerful  article  by  the  late 
Dr.  Dale  in  the  Expositor^  Fourth  Series,  Vol.  VI.,  July  1892,  pp.  i  ff. 
Cf.,  too,  C.  H.  H.  Wright,  Biblical  Essays  (1886),  pp.  34-98. 

^  Marck  (quoted  by  Kleinert)  said  :  "  Scriptum  est  magna  parte 
historicum  sed  ita  ut  in  historia  ipsa  lateat  maximi  vaticinii  mysterium, 
atque  ipse  fatis  suis,  non  minus  quam  effatis  vatem  se  verum  demon- 
stret."  Hitzig  curiously  thinks  that  this  is  the  reason  why  it  has 
been  placed  in  the  Canon  of  the  Prophets  next  to  the  unfulfilled 
prophecy  of  God  against  Edom.  But  by  the  date  which  Hitzig  assigns 
to  the  book  the  prophecy  against  Edom  was  at  least  in  a  fair  way 
to  fulfilment.  Riehm  (Jheol.  Stud.  u.  Krit.,  1862,  pp.  413  f.)  :  "  The 
practical  intention  of  the  book  is  to  afford  instruction  concerning  the 
proper  attitude  to  prophetic  warnings  ";  these,  though  genuine  words 
of  God,  may  be  averted  by  repentance.  Volck  (art.  "Jona"  in 
Herzog's  Real.  Encycl."^)  gives  the  following.  Jonah's  experience  is 
characteristic  of  the  whole  prophetic  profession.  "We  learn  from  it 
(i)  that  the  prophet  must  perform  what  God  commands  him,  however 
unusual  it  appears ;  (2)  that  even  death  cannot  nullify  his  calling ; 
(3)  that  the  prophet  has  no  right  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  prediction, 
but  must  place  it  in  God's  hand."  Vatke  (Einl.,  688)  maintains  that 
the  book  was  written  in  an  apologetic  interest,  when  Jews  ex- 
pounded the  prophets  and  found  this  difficulty,  that  all  their  predic- 
tions had  not  been  fulfilled.  "The  author  obviously  teaches:  (i) 
since  the  prophet  cannot  withdraw  from  the  Divine  commission,  he 
is  also  not  responsible  for  the  contents  of  his  predictions ;  (2)  the 
prophet  often  announces  Divine  purposes,  which   are  not   fulfilled. 


^; 


THE  BOOK  OF  JONAH  501 

the  judgments  of  God  and  the  predictions  of  His 
prophets  were  not  always  fulfilled — though  this  also 
becomes  clear  by  the  way.  The  purpose  of  the  parable, 
and  it  is  patent  from  first  to  last,  is  to  illustrate  the  ^ 
mission  of  prophecy  to  the  Gentiles,  God's  care  for  them,^  ^ 
and  their  susceptibility  to  His  word.  More  correctly, 
it  is  to  enforce  all  this  truth  upon  a  prejudiced  and 
thrice-reluctant  mind.^ 

Whose  was  this  reluctant  mind  ?  In  Israel  after  the 
Exile  there  were  many  different  feelings  with  regard 
to  the  future  and  the  great  obstacle  which  heathendom 
interposed  between  Israel  and  the  future.  There  was 
the  feeling  of  outraged  justice,  with  the  intense  con- 
viction that  Jehovah's  kingdom  could  not  be  established 
save  by  the  overthrow  of  the  cruel  kingdoms  of  this 
world.  We  have  seen  that  conviction  expressed  in 
the  Book  of  Obadiah.  But  the  nation,  which  read  and 
cherished  the  visions  of  the  Great  Seer  of  the  Exile,^ 
could  not  help  producing  among  her  sons  men  with 
hopes  about  the  heathen  of  a  very  different  kind — men 
who  felt  that  Israel's  mission  to  the  world  was  not  one 


because  God  in  His  mercy  takes  back  the  threat,  when  repentance 
follows ;  (3)  the  honour  of  a  prophet  is  not  hurt  when  a  threat  is 
not  fulfilled,  and  the  inspiration  remains  unquestioned,  although  many 
predictions  are  not  carried  out." 

To  all  of  which  there  is  a  conclusive  answer,  in  the  fact  that,  had 
the  book  been  meant  to  explain  or  justify  unfulfilled  prophecy,  the 
author  would  certainly  not  have  chosen  as  an  instance  a  judgment 
against  Niniveh,  because,  by  the  time  he  wrote,  all  the  early  pre- 
dictions of  Niniveh's  fall  had  been  fulfilled,  we  might  say,  to  the 
very  letter. 

'  So  even  Kimchi ;  and  in  modern  times  De  Wette,  Delitzsch, 
Bleek,  Reuss,  Cheyne,  Wright,  Kdnig,  Farrar,  Orelli,  etc.  So  virtually 
also  Nowack.  Ewald's  view  is  a  little  different.  He  thinks  that  the 
fundamental  truth  of  the  book  is  that  "  true  fear  and  repentance 
bring  salvation  from  Jehovah."  '^  Isa.  xl.  ff. 


502  THE    TWELVE  PROPHETS 

of  war,  but  of  service  in  those  high  truths  of  God  and 
of  His  Grace  which  had  been  committed  to  herself. 
Between  the  two  parties  it  is  certain  there  was  much 
polemic,  and  we  find  this  still  bitter  in  the  time  of  our 
Lord.  And  some  critics  think  that  while  Esther, 
Obadiah  and  other  writings  of  the  centuries  after  the 
Return  represent  the  one  side  of  this  polemic,  which 
demanded  the  overthrow  of  the  heathen,  the  Book  of 
Jonah  represents  the  other  side,  and  in  the  vexed  and 
reluctant  prophet  pictures  such  Jews  as  were  willing 
to  proclaim  the  destruction  of  the  enemies  of  Israel, 
and  yet  like  Jonah  were  not  without  the  lurking  fear 
that  God  would  disappoint  their  predictions  and  in  His 
patience  leave  the  heathen  room  for  repentance.^  Their 
dogmatism  could  not  resist  the  impression  of  how  long 
God  had  actually  spared  the  oppressors  of  His  people, 
and  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Jonah  cunningly  sought 
these  joints  in  their  armour  to  insinuate  the  points  of 
his  doctrine  of  God's  real  will  for  nations  beyond  the 
covenant.  This  is  ingenious  and  plausible.  But  in 
spite  of  the  cleverness  with  which  it  has  been  argued 
that  the  details  of  the  story  of  Jonah  are  adapted  to 
the  temper  of  the  Jewish  party  who  desired  only 
vengeance  on  the  heathen,  it  is  not  at  all  necessary 
to  suppose  that  the  book  was  the  produce  of  mere 
polemic.  The  book  is  too  simple  and  too  grand  for 
that.  And  therefore  those  appear  more  right  who  con- 
ceive that  the  writer  had  in  view,  not  a  Jewish  party, 
but  Israel  as  a  whole  in  their  national  reluctance  to 
fulfil  their  Divine  mission  to  the  world.^     Of  them  God 

'  So  virtually  Kuenen,  £"/«/.,  II.,  p.  423;  Smend,  Lehrbuch  der 
A.  T.  Religionsgeschichte,  pp.  408  f,,  and  Nowack. 

■^  That  the  book  is  a  historical  allegory  is  a  very  old  theory, 
Hermann  v,  d.  Hardt  {^itigmata  Prisci  Orbis,   1723  :   cf.  Jonas  in 


THE  BOOK  OF  JONAH  503 

had  already  said  :  Who  is  blind  but  My  servant,  or  deaf 
as  My  messenger  whom  I  have  sent  ?  .  .  .  Who  gave 
Jacob  for  a  spoil  and  Israel  to  the  robbers  ?  Did  not 
Jehovah,  He  against  whom  we  have  sinned? — for  they 
would  not  walk  in  His  ways,  neither  were  they  obedient  to 
His  law}  Of  such  a  people  Jonah  is  the  type.  Like 
them  he  flees  from  the  duty  God  has  laid  upon  him. 
Like  them  he  is,  beyond  his  own  land,  cast  for  a  set 
period  into  a  living  death,  and  like  them  rescued  again 
only  to  exhibit  once  more  upon  his  return  an  ill- 
will  to  believe  that  God  had  any  fate  for  the  heathen 
except  destruction.  According  to  this  theory,  then, 
Jonah's  disappearance  in  the  sea  and  the  great  fish, 
and  his  subsequent  ejection  upon  dry  land,  symboHse 
the  Exile  of  Israel  and  their  restoration  to  Palestine. 

In  proof  of  this  view  it  has  been  pointed  out  that,  while 
the  prophets  frequently  represent  the  heathen  tyrants 
of  Israel  as  the  sea  or  the  sea-monster,  one  of  them  has 
actually  described  the  nation's  exile  as  its  swallowing 
by  a  monster,  whom  God  forces  at  last  to  disgorge  his 
living  prey.^     The  full  illustration  of  this  will  be  given 


Carcharia,  Israel  in  Carcathio,  1 7 18,  quoted  by  Vatke,  Etni,  p.  686) 
found  in  the  book  a  political  allegory  of  the  history  of  Manasseh  led 
into  exile,  and  converted,  while  the  last  two  chapters  represent  the 
history  of  Josiah.  That  the  book  was  symbolic  in  some  way  of 
the  conduct  and  fortunes  of  Israel  was  a  view  familiar  in  Great 
Britain  during  the  first  half  of  this  century  :  see  the  Preface  to  the 
English  translation  of  Calvin  on  Jonah  (1847).  Kleinert  (in  his 
commentary  on  Jonah  in  Lange's  Series,  Vol.  XVI.  English  translation, 
1874)  was  one  of  the  first  to  expound  with  details  the  symbolising 
of  Israel  in  the  prophet  Jonah.  Then  came  the  article  in  the  Theol. 
Review  (XIV.  1 877,  pp.  214  ff.)  by  Cheyne,  following  Bloch's  Stndien 
z.  Gesch.  der  Samnihtng  der  althebrdischen  Litteratur  (Breslau,  1876)  ; 
but  adding  the  explanation  of  the  great  fish  from  Hebrew  mythology 
(see  below).  Von  Orelli  quotes  Kleinert  with  approval  in  the  main. 
1  Isa.  xlii.  19-24.  -  Jer.  li.  34,  44  f. 


504  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

in  Chapter  XXXVI.  on  "  The  Great  Fish  and  What  it 
Means."  Here  it  is  only  necessary  to  mention  that  the 
metaphor  was  borrowed,  not,  as  has  been  alleged  by 
many,  from  some  Greek,  or  other  foreign,  myth,  which, 
like  that  of  Perseus  and  Andromeda,  had  its  scene 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Joppa,  but  from  a  Semitic 
mythology  which  was  well  known  to  the  Hebrews,  and 
the  materials  of  which  were  employed  very  frequently 
by  other  prophets  and  poets  of  the  Old  Testament.^ 
Why,  of  all  prophets,  Jonah  should  have  been  selected 
as  the  type  of  Israel,  is  a  question  hard  but  perhaps 
not  impossible  to  answer.  In  history  Jonah  appears 
only  as  concerned  with  Israel's  reconquest  of  her  lands 
from  the  heathen.  Did  the  author  of  the  book  say  : 
I  will  take  such  a  man,  one  to  whom  tradition  attri- 
butes no  outlook  beyond  Israel's  own  territories,  for 
none  could  be  so  typical  of  Israel,  narrow,  selfish  and 
with  no  love  for  the  world  beyond  herself?  Or  did 
the  author  know  some  story  about  a  journey  of  Jonah 
to  Niniveh,  or  at  least  some  discourse  by  Jonah  against 
the  great  city  ?     Elijah  went  to  Sarepta,  Elisha  took 

'  That  the  Book  of  Jonah  employs  mythical  elements  is  an  opinion 
that  has  prevailed  since  the  beginning  of  this  century.  But  before 
Semitic  mythology  was  so  well  known  as  it  is  now,  these  mythical 
elements  were  thought  to  have  been  derived  from  the  Greek  myth- 
ology. So  Gesenius,  De  Wette,  and  even  Knobel,  but  see  especially 
F.  C.  Baur  in  Ilgen's  Zeitschrtft  iox  1837,  p.  201.  Kuenen  {Em/.,  424) 
and  Cheyne  {Theol.  Rev.,  XIV.)  rightly  deny  traces  of  any  Greek 
influence  on  Jonah,  and  their  denial  is  generally  agreed  in. 

Kleinert  {op.  cit.,  p.  lo)  points  to  the  proper  source  in  fhe  native 
mythology  of  the  Hebrews:  "The  sea-monster  is  by  no  means 
an  unusual  phenomenon  in  prophetic  typology.  It  is  the  secular 
power  appointed  by  God  for  the  scourge  of  Israel  and  of  the  earth 
(Isa.  xxvii.  i)";  and  Cheyne  (Theol.  Rev.,  XIV.,  "Jonah:  a  Study  in 
Jewish  Folk-lore  and  Religion  ")  points  out  how  Jer.  li.  34,  44  f.,  forms 
the  connecting  link  between  the  story  of  Jonah  and  the  popular 
mythology. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JONAH  505 

God's  word  to  Damascus :  may  there  not  have  been, 
though  we  are  ignorant  of  it,  some  connection  between 
Niniveh  and  the  labours  of  Elisha's  successor  ?  Thirty 
years  after  Jonah  appeared,  Amos  proclaimed  the 
judgment  of  Jehovah  upon  foreign  nations,  with  the 
destruction  of  their  capitals;  about  the  year  755  he 
clearly  enforced,  as  equal  with  Israel's  own,  the  moral 
responsibility  of  the  heathen  to  the  God  of  righteous- 
ness. May  not  Jonah,  almost  the  contemporary  of 
Amos,  have  denounced  Niniveh  in  the  same  way  ? 
Would  not  some  tradition  of  this  serve  as  the  nucleus 
of  history,  round  which  our  author  built  his  allegory  ? 
It  is  possible  that  Jonah  proclaimed  doom  upon 
Niniveh ;  yet  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  prophesy- 
ing of  Amos,  Hosea,  and,  in  his  younger  days,  Isaiah, 
will  deem  it  hardly  probable.  For  why  do  all  these 
prophets  exhibit  such  reserve  in  even  naming  Assyria, 
if  Israel  had  already  through  Jonah  entered  into  such 
articulate  relations  with  Niniveh  ?  We  must,  therefore, 
admit  our  ignorance  of  the  reasons  which  led  our  author 
to  choose  Jonah  as  a  type  of  Israel.  We  can  only 
conjecture  that  it  may  have  been  because  Jonah  was 
a  prophet,  whom  history  identified  only  with  Israel's 
narrower  interests.  If,  during  subsequent  centuries, 
a  tradition  had  risen  of  Jonah's  journey  to  Niniveh  or 
of  his  discourse  against  her,  such  a  tradition  has 
probability  against  it. 

A  more  definite  origin  for  the  book  than  any  yet 
given  has  been  suggested  by  Professor  Budde.^  The 
Second  Book  of  Chronicles  refers  to  a  Midrash  of  the 
Book  of  the  Kings  ^  for  further  particulars  concerning 

>  Z.A.T.W.,  1892,  pp.  40  ft: 
^  2  Chron.  xxiv.  27. 


5o6  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

King  Joash.  A  Midrash^  was  the  expansion,  for 
doctrinal  or  homiletic  purposes,  of  a  passage  of 
Scripture,  and  very  frequently  took  the  form,  so  dear 
to  Orientals,  of  parable  or  invented  story  about  the 
subject  of  the  text.  We  have  examples  of  Midrashim 
among  the  Apocrypha,  in  the  Books  of  Tobit  and 
Susannah  and  in  the  Prayer  of  Manasseh,  the  same  as 
is  probably  referred  to  by  the  Chronicler.^  That  the 
Chronicler  himself  used  the  Midrash  of  the  Book  of  the 
Kings  as  material  for  his  own  book  is  obvious  from  the 
form  of  the  latter  and  its  adaptation  of  the  historical 
narratives  of  the  Book  of  Kings.^  The  Book  of  Daniel 
may  also  be  reckoned  among  the  Midrashim,  and 
Budde  now  proposes  to  add  to  their  number  the  Book 
of  Jonah.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  this  distinguished 
critic  is  right  in  supposing  that  the  book  formed  the 
Midrash  to  2  Kings  xiv.  25  ff.  (the  author  being 
desirous  to  add  to  the  expression  there  of  Jehovah's 
pity  upon  Israel  some  expression  of  His  pity  upon  the 
heathen),  or  that  it  was  extracted  just  as  it  stands,  in 
proof  of  which  Budde  points  to  its  abrupt  beginning 
and  end.  We  have  seen  another  reason  for  the 
latter ;  ^  and  it  is  very  improbable  that  the  Midrashim, 
so  largely  the  basis  of  the  Books  of  Chronicles,  shared 
that  spirit  of  universalism  which  inspires  the  Book  of 
Jonah.^  But  we  may  well  believe  that  it  was  in  some 
Midrash  of  tlie  Book  of  Kings  that  the  author  of  the 
Book  of  Jonah  found  the  basis  of  the  latter  part  of 
his    immortal   work,    which    too    clearly   reflects    the 

'  Cf.  Driver,  Introduction,  I.,  p.  497. 

-  2  Chron.  xxxiii.  l8. 

^  See  Robertson  Smith,  Old  Test,  in  the  Jewish  Church,  pp.  140, 154. 

■•  See  above,  pp.  499  f. 

^  Cf.  Smend,  A,  T.  Religionsgeschichte,  p.  409,  n.  i. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JONAH  5o7 

fortunes  and  conduct  of  all  Israel  to  have  been  wholly 
drawn  from  a  Midrash  upon  the  story  of  the  individual 
prophet  Jonah, 

4.  Our  Lord's  Use  of  the  Book. 

We  have  seen,  then,  that  the  Book  of  Jonah  is  not 
actual  history,  but  the  enforcement  of  a  profound 
religious  truth  nearer  to  the  level  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment than  anything  else  in  the  Old/  and  cast  in  the 
form  of  Christ's  own  parables.  The  full  proof  of  this 
can  be  made  clear  only  by  the  detailed  exposition  of 
the  book.  There  is,  however,  one  other  question, 
which  is  relevant  to  the  argument.  Christ  Himself 
has  employed  the  story  of  Jonah.  Does  His  use  of  it 
involve  His  authority  for  the  opinion  that  it  is  a  story 
of  real  facts  ? 

Two  passages  of  the  Gospels  contain  the  words  of 
our  Lord  upon  Jonah  :  Matt.  xii.  39,  41,  and  Luke  xi. 
29,  30.^  A  generation^  wicked  and  adidterous^  seeketh  a 
sign,  arid  sign  shall  not  be  given  it,  save  the  sign  of  the 

'  Matt.  xii.  40 — For  as  Jonah  was  in  the  belly  of  the  whale  three 
days  and  three  nights,  so  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  in  the  heart  of  the 
earth  three  days  and  three  nights — is  not  repeated  in  Luke  xi.  29,  30, 
which  confines  the  sign  to  the  preaching  of  repentance,  and  is 
suspected  as  an  intrusion  both  for  this  and  other  reasons,  e.g.  that 
ver.  40  is  superfluous  and  does  not  fit  in  with  ver.  41,  which  gives  the 
proper  explanation  of  the  sign ;  that  Jonah,  who  came  by  his  burial 
in  the  fish  through  neglect  of  his  duty  and  not  by  martyrdom,  could 
not  therefore  in  this  respect  be  a  type  of  our  Lord.  On  the  other 
hand,  ver.  40  is  not  unHke  another  reference  of  our  Lord  to  His 
resurrection,  John  ii,  19  ff.  Yet,  even  if  ver.  40  be  genuine,  the  vague- 
ness of  the  parallel  drawn  in  it  between  Jonah  and  our  Lord  surely 
makes  for  the  opinion  that  in  quoting  Jonah  our  Lord  was  not 
concerned  about  q\ioting  facts,  but  simply  gave  an  illustration  from 
a  well-known  tale.  Matt.  xvi.  4,  where  the  sign  of  Jonah  is  again 
mentioned,  does  not  explain  the  sign. 


/ 


So8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

prophet  Jonah,  .  .  .  The  men  of  Niniveh  shall  stand  up 
in  the  Judgment  with  this  generation^  and  condemn  it ^  for 
they  repented  at  the  preaching  of  Jonah,  and  behold,  a 
greater  than  Jonah  is  here.  This  generation  is  an  evil 
generation  :  it  seeketh  a  sign  ;  and  sign  shall  not  be  given 
it,  except  the  sign  of  Jonah.  For  as  Jonah  was  a  sign 
to  the  Ninivites,  so  also  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  to  this 
generation. 

These  words,  of  course,  are  compatible  with  the 
opinion  that  the  Book  of  Jonah  is  a  record  of  real  fact. 
The  only  question  is,  are  they  also  compatible  with  the 
opinion  that  the  Book  of  Jonah  is  a  parable  ?  Many 
say  No  ;  and  they  allege  that  those  of  us  who  hold 
this  opinion  are  denying,  or  at  least  ignoring,  the 
testimony  of'  our  Lord  ;  or  that  we  are  taking  away 
the  whole  force  of  the  parallel  which  He  drew.  This 
is  a  question  of  interpretation,  not  of  faith.  We  do 
not  believe  that  our  Lord  had  any  thought  of  con- 
firming or  not  confirming  the  historic  character  of  the 
story.  His  purpose  was  purely  one  of  exhortation, 
and  we  feel  the  grounds  of  that  exhortation  to  be  just 
as  strong,  when  we  have  proven  the  Book  of  Jonah 
to  be  a  parable.  Christ  is  using  an  illustration  :  it 
surely  matters  not  whether  that  illustration  be  drawn 
from  the  realms  of  fact  or  of  poetry.  Again  and  again 
in  their  discourses  to  the  people  do  men  use  illustra- 
tions and  enforcements  drawn  from  traditions  of  the 
past.  Do  we,  even  when  the  historical  value  of  these 
traditions  is  very  ambiguous,  give  a  single  thought  to 
the  question  of  their  historical  character?  We  never 
think  of  it.  It  is  enough  for  us  that  the  tradition  is 
popularly  accepted  and  familiar.  And  we  cannot  deny 
to  our  Lord  that  which  we  claim  for  ourselves.^     Even 

'  Take  a  case.     Suppose  we  tell  slothful  people  that  theirs  will  be 


THE  BOOK  OF  JONAH  509 

conservative  writers  admit  this.  In  his  recent  Intro- 
duction to  Jonah  Orelli  says  expressly  :  ''  It  is  not, 
indeed,  proved  v^ith  conclusive  necessity  that,  if  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  was  a  physical  fact,  Jonah's  abode 
in  the  fish's  belly  must  also  be  just  as  historical."  ^ 

Upon  the  general  question  of  our  Lord's  authority 
in  matters  of  criticism,  His  own  words  with  regard  to 
personal  questions  may  be  appositely  quoted :  Man, 
who  made  Me  a  judge  or  divider  over  you  ?  I  am  come 
not  to  judge  .  .  .  but  to  save.  Such  matters  our  Lord 
surely  leaves  to  ourselves,  and  we  have  to  decide  them 
by  our  reason,  our  common-sense  and  our  loyalty  to 
truth — of  all  of  which  He  Himself  is  the  creator,  and 
of  which  we  shall  have  to  render  to  Him  an  account 
at  the  last.  Let  us  remember  this,  and  we  shall  use 
them  with  equal  liberty  and  reverence.  Bringing  every 
thought  into  subjection  to  Christ  is  surely  just  using  our 
knowledge,  our  reason,  and  every  other  intellectual 
gift  which  He  has  given  us,  with  the  accuracy  and 
the  courage  of  His  own  Spirit. 

5.  The  Unity  of  the  Book. 

The  next  question  is  that  of  the  Unity  of  the  Book. 
Several  attempts  have  been  made  to  prove  from  dis- 
crepancies, some  real  and  some  alleged,  that  the  book 
is  a  compilation  of  stories  from  several  different  hands. 

the  fate  of  the  man  who  buried  his  talent,  is  this  to  commit  us  to  the 
belief  that  the  personages  of  Christ's  parables  actually  existed  ?  Or 
take  the  homiletic  use  of  Shakespeare's  dramas — "as  Macbeth  did," 
or  "as  Hamlet  said."  Does  it  commit  us  to  the  historical  reality  of 
Macbeth  or  Hamlet  ?  Any  preacher  among  us  would  resent  being 
bound  by  such  an  inference.  And  if  we  resent  this  for  ourselves,  how 
chary  we  should  be  about  seeking  to  bind  our  Lord  by  it. 

1  Eng,  trans,  of  The  Twelve  Minor  Prophets,  p.  172.  Consult  also 
Farrar's  judicious  paragraphs  on  the  subject  :  Minor  Prophets,  234  f. 


5IO  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

But  these  essays  are  too  artificial  to  have  obtained  any 
adherence  from  critics  ;  and  the  few  real  discrepancies 
of  narrative  from  which  they  start  are  due,  as  we  have 
seen,  rather  to  the  Hcense  of  a  writer  of  parable  than 
to  any  difference  of  authorship.-^ 

In  the  question  of  the  Unity  of  the  Book,  the  Prayer 
or  Psalm  in  chap.  ii.  offers  a  problem  of  its  own,  con- 
sisting as  it  does  almost  entirely  of  passages  parallel 
to  others  in  the  Psalter.     Besides  a  number  of  religious 

'  The  two  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  divide  the  Book  of 
Jonah  are  those  by  KOhler  in  the  Theol.  Rev.,  XVI.  139  ff.,  and  by 
Bohme  in  the  Z.A.T.W.,  VII.  224  ff.  KOhler  first  insists  on  traits  of 
an  earHer  age  (rude  conception  of  God,  no  sharp  boundary  drawn 
between  heathens  and  the  Hebrews,  etc.),  and  then  finds  traces  of  a 
late  revision  :  lacuna  in  i.  2;  hesitation  in  iii.  I,  in  the  giving  of  the 
prophet's  commission,  which  is  not  pure  Hebrew ;  change  of  three 
days  to  forty  (cf.  LXX. ) ;  mention  of  unnamed  king  and  his  edict, 
which  is  superfluous  after  the  popular  movement ;  beasts  sharing 
in  mourning;  also  in  i.  5,  8,  9,  14,  ii.  2,  Hn^  iii.  9,  iv.  I -4,  as  dis- 
turbing context ;  also  the  building  of  a  booth  is  superfluous,  and  only 
invented  to  account  for  Jonah  remaining  forty  days  instead  of  the 
original  three ;  iv.  6,  1t^'^«"l  hv  ^"i  T\Vrh  for  an  original  i"?  h^rh  = 
to  offer  him  shade ;  7,  the  worm,  r\]P)r\,  due  to  a  copyist's  change  of 
the  following  ni^yil.  Withdrawing  these,  Kohler  gets  an  account 
of  the  sparing  of  Niniveh  on  repentance  following  a  sentence  of 
doom,  which,  he  says,  reflects  the  position  of  the  city  of  God  in 
Jeremiah's  time,  and  was  due  to  Jeremiah's  opponents,  who  said  in 
answer  to  his  sentence  of  doom  :  If  Niniveh  could  avert  her  fate, 
why  not  Jerusalem  ?  Bohme's  conclusion,  starting  from  the  alleged 
contradictions  in  the  story,  is  that  no  fewer  than  four  hands  have 
had  to  deal  with  it.  A  sufficient  answer  is  given  by  Kuenen  (Einl., 
426  ff.),  who,  after  analysing  the  dissection,  says  that  its  "  improba- 
bility is  immediately  evident."  With  regard  to  the  inconsistencies 
which  Bohme  alleges  to  exist  in  chap.  iii.  between  ver.  5  and  vv.  6-9, 
Kuenen  remarks  that  "  all  that  is  needed  for  their  explanation  is 
a  little  good-will " — a  phrase  applicable  to  many  other  difficulties 
raised  with  regard  to  other  Old  Testament  books  by  critical  attempts 
even  more  rational  than  those  of  Bohme.  Cornill  characterises 
Bohme's  hypothesis  as  absurd. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JONAH  511 

phrases,  which  are  too  general  for  us  to  say  that  one 
prayer  has  borrowed  them  from  another/  there  are 
several  unmistakeable  repetitions  of  the  Psalms.^ 

And  yet  the  Psalm  of  Jonah  has  strong  features, 
which,  so  far  as  we  know,  are  original  to  it.  The  horror 
of  the  great  deep  has  nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament 
been  described  with  such  power  or  with  such  con- 
ciseness. So  far,  then,  the  Psalm  is  not  a  mere  string 
of  quotations,  but  a  Hving  unity.  Did  the  author  of 
the  book  himself  insert  it  where  it  stands?  Against 
this  it  has  been  urged  that  the  Psalm  is  not  the  prayer 
of  a  man  inside  a  fish,  but  of  one  who  on  dry  land 
celebrates  a  deliverance  from  drowning,  and  that  if  the 
author  of  the  narrative  himself  had  inserted  it,  he 
would  rather  have  done  so  after  ver.  1 1 ,  which  records 
the  prophet's  escape  from  the  fish.^  And  a  usual  theory 
of  the  origin  of  the  Psalm  is  that  a  later  editor,  having 
found  the  Psalm  ready-made  and  in  a  collection  where 
it  was  perhaps  attributed  to  Jonah,*  inserted  it  after 
ver.  2,  which  records  that  Jonah  did  pray  from  the 
belly  of  the  fish,  and  inserted  it  there  the  more  readily, 
because  it  seemed  right  for  a  book  which  had  found 
its  place  among  the  Twelve  Prophets  to  contribute, 
as  all  the  others  did,  some  actual  discourse  of  the 
prophet  whose  name  it  bore.^  This,  however,  is  not 
probable.      Whether    the   original   author   found    the 

^  To  Thy  holy  tetnple,  vv.  5  and  8 :  cf.  Psalm  v.  8,  etc.  The  waters 
have  come  round  me  to  my  very  soul,  ver.  6  :  cf.  Psalm  Ixix.  2.  And 
Thou  broughtest  up  my  life,  ver.  7  :  cf.  Psalm  xxx.  4.  When  my  soul 
fainted  upon  me,  ver.  8 :  cf.  Psalm  cxlii.  4,  etc.  With  the  voice  of 
thanksgiving,  ver.  lo :  cf.  Psalm  xlii.  5.     The  reff.  are  to  the  Heb.  text. 

-  Cf.  ver.  3  with  Psalm  xviii.  7  ;  ver.  4  with  Psalm  xlii.  8 ;  ver.  5 
with  Psalm  xxxi.  23 ;  ver.  9  with  Psalm  xxxi.  7,  and  ver.  10  with 
Psalm  1.  14.  '  De  Wette,  Knobel,  Kuenen. 

^  Budde,  as  above,  p.  42.  *  Budde. 


512  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

Psalm  ready  to  his  hand  or  made  it,  there  is  a  great 
deal  to  be  said  for  the  opinion  of  the  earlier  critics/  that 
he  himself  inserted  it,  and  just  where  it  now  stands- 
For,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  writer,  Jonah  was 
already  saved,  when  he  was  taken  up  by  the  fish — 
saved  from  the  deep  into  which  he  had  been  cast  by 
the  sailors,  and  the  dangers  of  which  the  Psalm  so 
vividly  describes.  However  impossible  it  be  for  us  to 
conceive  of  the  compilation  of  a  Psalm  (even  though 
full  of  quotations)  by  a  man  in  Jonah's  position,^  it 
was  consistent  with  the  standpoint  of  a  writer  who  had 
just  affirmed  that  the  fish  was  expressly  appointed  by 
Jehovah^  in  order  to  save  his  penitent  servant  from  the 
sea.  To  argue  that  the  Psalm  is  an  intrusion  is  there- 
fore not  only  unnecessary,  but  it  betrays  failure  to 
appreciate  the  standpoint  of  the  writer.  Given  the  fish 
and  the  Divine  purpose  of  the  fish,  the  Psalm  is 
intelligible  and  appears  at  its  proper  place.  It  were 
more  reasonable  indeed  to  argue  that  the  fish  itself  is 
an  insertion.  Besides,  as  we  shall  see,  the  spirit  of 
the  Psalm  is  national ;  in  conformity  with  the  truth 
underlying  the  book,  it  is  a  Psalm  of  Israel  as  a  whole. 
If  this  be  correct,  we  have  the  Book  of  Jonah  as  it 
came  from  the  hands  of  its  author.  The  text  is  in 
wonderfully  good  condition,  due  to  the  ease  of  the 
narrative    and    its    late    date.       The    Greek    version 

*  E.g.  Hitzig. 

-  Luther  says  of  Jonah's  prayer,  that  "he  did  not  speak  with  these 
exact  words  in  the  belly  of  the  fish,  nor  placed  them  so  orderl}',  but 
he  shows  how  he  took  courage,  and  what  sort  of  thoughts  his  heart 
had,  when  he  stood  in  such  a  battle  with  death."  We  recognise  in 
this  Psalm  "the  recollection  of  the  confidence  with  which  Jonah 
hoped  towards  God,  that  since  he  had  been  rescued  in  so  wonderful 
a  way  from  death  in  the  waves,  He  would  also  bring  him  out  of  the 
night  of  his  grave  into  the  light  of  day." 


THE  BOOK  OF  JONAH  513 

exhibits  the  usual  proportion  of  clerical  errors  and  mis- 
translations/ omissions  ^  and  amplifications/  with  some 
variant  readings^  and  other  changes  that  will  be  noted 
in  the  verses  themselves. 


*  ii.  5,  B  has  \abv  for  va.6v  ;  i.  9,  for  "'liy  it  reads  HIV,  and  takes  the 
^  to  be  abbreviation  for  Hin'' ;  ii.  7,  for  ^1^3  it  reads  v^H,  and  trans- 
lates KCLTOxoL ;  iv.  1 1,  for  Hl'SJ'"'  it  reads  )2'^'^f  and  translates  KarotKoOffi. 

■^  i.  4,  n?nil,  perhaps  rightly  omitted  before  following  b)1^ ;  i.  8, 
B  omits  the  clause  1K^N3  to  1J?,  probably  rightly,  for  it  is  needless, 
though  supplied  by  Codd.  A,  Q ;  iii.  9,  one  verb,  /xerauorjcrei,  for 
DnJI   21SJ^\  probably  correctly,  see  below. 

3  i.  2,  f]  Kpavyr]  r^s  /ca/c/as  for  Dnyi;  ii.  3,  rbv  deov  fiov  after  niiT'; 
ii.  10,  in  obedience  to  another  reading ;  iii.  2,  rb  'ifji.'wpo<xdev  after  H^NIp; 
iii  8,  -yO^h. 

*  iii.  4,  8. 


VOL  II.  33 


CHAPTER    XXXV 

THE    GREAT    REFUSAL 
Jonah  i 

WE  have  now  laid  clear  the  lines  upon  which  the 
Book  of  Jonah  was  composed.  Its  purpose  is 
to  illustrate  God's  grace  to  the  heathen  in  face  of  His 
people's  refusal  to  fulfil  their  mission  to  them.  The 
author  was  led  to  achieve  this  purpose  by  a  parable, 
through  which  the  prophet  Jonah  moves  as  the  symbol 
of  his  recusant,  exiled,  redeemed  and  still  hardened 
people.  It  is  the  Drama  of  Israel's  career,  as  the 
Servant  of  God,  in  the  most  pathetic  moments  of  that 
career.  A  nation  is  stumbling  on  the  highest  road 
nation  was  ever  called  to  tread. 

Who  is  blind  but  My  servant^ 

Or  deaf  as  My  messenger  whom  I  have  sent? 

He  that  would  read  this  Drama  aright  must  remember 
what  lies  behind  the  Great  Refusal  which  forms  its 
tragedy.  The  cause  of  Israel's  recusancy  was  not  only 
wilfulness  or  cowardly  sloth,  but  the  horror  of  a  whole 
world  given  over  to  idolatry,  the  paralysing  sense  of 
its  irresistible  force,  of  its  cruel  persecutions  endured 
for  centuries,  and  of  the  long  famine  of  Heaven's 
justice.  These  it  was  which  had  filled  Israel's  eyes 
too   full   of  fever   to   see   her  duty.      Only  when  we 

514 


Jonah i.]  THE  GREAT  REFUSAL  515 

feel,  as  the  writer  himself  felt,  all  this  tragic  back- 
ground to  his  story  are  we  able  to  appreciate  the  ex- 
quisite gleams  which  he  flashes  across  it :  the  generous 
magnanimity  of  the  heathen  sailors,  the  repentance  of 
the  heathen  city,  and,  lighting  from  above,  God's  pity 
upon  the  dumb  heathen  multitudes. 

The  parable  or  drama  divides  itself  into  three  parts  :    , 
The  Prophet's  Flight  and  Turning  (chap,  i.)  ;  The  Great   i--'' 
Fish  and  What  it  Means  (chap,  ii.) ;  and  The  Repent-\./ 
ance  of  the  City  (chaps,  iii.  and  iv.). 

The  chief  figur*^,  of  the  story  is  Jonah,  son  of 
Amittai,  from  Gath-hepher  in  Galilee,  a  prophet  identi- 
fied with  that  turn  in  Israel's  fortunes,  by  which  she 
began  to  defeat  her  Syrian  oppressors,  and  win  back 
from  them  her  own  territories — a  prophet,  therefore, 
of  revenge,  and  from  the  most  bitter  of  the  heathen 
wars.  And  the  word  of  Jehovah  came  to  Jonah,  the  son 
of  Amittai f  saying,  Up,  go  to  Niniveh,  the  Great  City, 
and  cry  out  against  her,  for  her  evil  is  come  up  before 
Me.  But  he  arose  to  flee.  It  was  not  the  length  of  the 
road,  nor  the  danger  of  declaring  Niniveh's  sin  to 
her  face,  which  turned  him,  but  the  instinct  that  God 
intended  by  him  something  else  than  Niniveh's  de- 
struction ;  and  this  instinct  sprang  from  his  knowledge 
of  God  Himself  Ah  now,  Jehovah,  was  not  my  word, 
while  I  was  yet  upon  mine  own  soil,  at  the  time  I  made 
ready  to  flee  to  Tarshish,  this — that  I  knew  that  Thou 
art  a  God  gracious  and  tender  and  long-suffering 
plenteous  in  love  and  relenting  of  evil?^  Jonah  in- 
terpreted the  Word  which  came  to  him  by  the  Character 
which  he  knew  to  be  behind  the  Word.  This  is  a 
significant  hint  upon  the  method  of  revelation. 


5i6  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

It  would  be  rash  to  say  that,  in  imputing  even  to 
the  historical  Jonah  the  fear  of  God's  grace  upon  the 
heathen,  our  author  were  guilty  of  an  anachronism.^ 
We  have  to  do,  however,  with  a  greater  than  Jonah 
— the  nation  herself.  Though  perhaps  Israel  little 
reflected  upon  it,  the  instinct  can  never  have  been  far 
away  that  some  day  the  grace  of  Jehovah  might  reach 
the  heathen  too.  Such  an  instinct,  of  course,  must 
have  been  almost  stifled  by  hatred  born  of  heathen 
oppression,  as  well  as  by  the  intellectual  scorn  which 
Israel  came  to  feel  for  heathen  idolatries.  But  we 
may  believe  that  it  haunted  even  those  dark  periods 
in  which  revenge  upon  the  Gentiles  seemed  most  just, 
and  their  destruction  the  only  means  of  establishing 
God's  kingdom  in  the  world.  We  know  that  it  moved 
uneasily  even  beneath  the  rigour  of  Jewish  legalism. 
For  its  secret  was  that  faith  in  the  essential  grace  of 
God,  which  Israel  gained  very  early  and  never  lost, 
and  which  was  the  spring  of  every  new  conviction  and 
every  reform  in  her  wonderful  development.  With  a 
subtle  appreciation  of  all  this,  our  author  imputes  the 
instinct  to  Jonah  from  the  outset.  Jonah's  fear,  that 
after  all  the  heathen  may  be  spared,  reflects  the  rest- 
less apprehension  even  of  the  most  exclusive  of  his 
people — an  apprehension  which  by  the  time  our  book 

1  For  the  grace  of  God  had  been  the  most  formative  influence  in 
the  early  religion  of  Israel  (see  Vol.  I.,  p.  19),  and  Amos,  only 
thirty  years  after  Jonah,  emphasised  the  moral  equality  of  Israel 
and  the  Gentiles  before  the  one  God  of  righteousness.  Given  these 
two  premisses  of  God's  essential  grace  and  the  moral  responsibiUty 
of  the  heathen  to  Him,  and  the  conclusion  could  never  have  been 
far  away  that  in  the  end  His  essential  grace  must  reach  the  heathen 
too.  Indeed  in  sayings  not  later  than  the  eighth  century  it  is 
foretold  that  Israel  shall  become  a  blessing  to  the  whole  world. 
Our  author,  then,  may  have  been  guilty  of  no  anachronism  in 
imputing  such  a  foreboding  to  Jonah. 


Jonah  i.]  THE  GREAT  REFUSAL  517 

was  written  seemed  to  be  still  more  justified  by  God's 
long  delay  of  doom  upon  the  tyrants  whom  He  had 
promised  to  overthrow. 

But  to  the  natural  man  in  Israel  the  possibility  of 
the  heathen's  repentance  was  still  so  abhorrent,  that 
he   turned   his   back   upon   it.    Jonah   rose  to  flee  to 
Tarshish  from  the  face  of  Jehovah.     In  spite  of  recent 
arguments  to  the  contrary,  the  most  probable  location 
of  Tarshish  is  the  generally  accepted  one,  that  it  was 
a  Phoenician  colony  at  the  other  end  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean.    In  any  case  it  was  far  from  the  Holy  Land ; 
and   by  going  there  the  prophet  would  put    the   sea 
between    himself    and    his    God.      To    the    Hebrew 
imagination  there  could  not  be  a  flight  more  remote. 
Israel  was  essentially   an   inland    people.     They   had 
come  up  out  of  the  desert,  and  they  had  practically 
never  yet  touched  the  Mediterranean.    They  lived  within 
sight  of  it,   but  from  ten  to  twenty  miles  of  foreign 
soil  intervened  between  their  mountains  and  its  stormy 
coast.     The  Jews  had  no  traffic  upon  the  sea,  nor  (but 
for  one  sublime  instance^  to   the  contrary)  had  their 
poets  ever  employed  it  except  as  a  symbol  of  arrogance 
and  restless  rebellion  against  the  will  of  God.^     It  was 
all  this  popular  feeling  of  the  distance  and  strangeness 
of  the  sea  which   made  our  author  choose  it  as  the 
scene  of  the  prophet's  flight  from  the  face  of  Israel's 
God.     Jonah  had  to  pass,  too,  through  a  foreign  land 
to  get  to  the  coast  :   upon  the  sea  he  would  only  be 
among  heathen.    This  was  to  be  part  of  his  conversion. 
He  went  down  to    Yapho,   and  found  a  ship  going  to 
Tarshish,  and  paid  the  fare  thereof  and  embarked  on  her 


^  Second  Isaiah.     See  chap.  Ix. 

^  See  the  author's  Hist.  Geog.  of  the  Holy  Land,  pp.  131 -134 


5i8  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

to  get  away  with  her  crew  ^  to  Tarshish — away  from  the 
face  of  Jehovah. 

The  scenes  which  follow  are  very  vivid  :  the  sudden 
wind  sweeping  down  from  the  very  hills  on  which 
Jonah  believed  he  had  left  his  God ;  the  tempest ;  the 
behaviour  of  the  ship,  so  alive  with  effort  that  the 
story  attributes  to  her  the  feelings  of  a  living  thing 
— she  thought  she  must  be  broken;  the  despair  of  the 
mariners,  driven  from  the  unity  of  their  common  task 
to  the  hopeless  diversity  of  their  idolatry — they  cried 
every  man  unto  his  own  god;  the  jettisoning  of  the 
tackle  of  the  ship  to  lighten  her  (as  we  should  say, 
they  let  the  masts  go  by  the  board) ;  the  worn-out 
prophet  in  the  hull  of  the  ship,  sleeping  like  a  stow- 
away ;  the  group  gathered  on  the  heaving  deck  to  cast 
the  lot ;  the  passenger's  confession,  and  the  new  fear 
which  fell  upon  the  sailors  from  it ;  the  reverence  with 
which  these  rude  men  ask  the  advice  of  him,  in  whose 
guilt  they  feel  not  the  offence  to  themselves,  but  the 
sacredness  to  God ;  the  awakening  of  the  prophet's 
better  self  by  their  generous  deference  to  him ;  how 
he  counsels  to  them  his  own  sacrifice ;  their  reluctance  to 
yield  to  this,  and  their  return  to  the  oars  with  increased 
perseverance  for  his  sake.  But  neither  their  generosity 
nor  their  efforts  avail.  The  prophet  again  offers  him- 
self, and  as  their  sacrifice  he  is  thrown  into  the  sea. 

And  Jehovah  cast  a  wind'^  on  the  sea^  and  there  was 
a  great  tempest,^  and  the  ship  threatened''  to  break  up. 
And  the  sailors  were  afraid^  and  cried  every  man  unto 
his  own  god;  and  they  cast  the  tackle  of  the  ship  into  the 
sea^  to  lighten  it  from  upon  them.     But  Jonah  had  gone 


'  Heb.  them.  ^  Heb.  on  the  sea. 

*  Sq  LXX.  :  Heb.  a  great  wind.        *  Lit.  reckoned  or  thought. 


Jonah  i.]  THE   GREAT  REFUSAL  519 

down  to  the  bottom  of  the  ship  and  lay  fast  asleep. 
And  the  captain  of  the  ship  ^  came  to  him,  and  said 
to  hifn,  What  art  thou  doing  asleep  ?  Up^  call  on  thy 
God;  peradventure  the  God  will  be  gracious  to  us,  that  we 
perish  not.  And  they  said  every  man  to  his  neighbour, 
Come,  and  let  us  cast  lots,  that  we  may  knoiv  for  whose 
sake  is  this  evil  come  upon  us.  So  they  cast  lots,  and  the 
lot  fell  on  Jonah,  And  they  said  to  him.  Tell  us  noiv,^ 
ivhat  is  thy  business,  and  whence  comest  thou  ?  what 
is  thy  land,  and  from  zvhat  people  art  thou?  And  he 
said  to  them,  A  Hebrew  am  I,  and  a  worshipper  of 
the  God  of  Heaven,^  who  made  the  sea  and  the  dry 
land.  And  the  men  feared  greatly,  and  said  to  him. 
What  is  this  thou  hast  done?  (for  they  knew  he  was 
fleeing  from  the  face  of  Jehovah,  because  he  had  told 
them).  And  they  said  to  him.  What  are  we  to  do  to 
thee  that  the  sea  cease  raging  against  us  ?  For  the  sea 
was  surging  higher  and  higher.  And  he  said.  Take 
me  and  throiv  me  into  the  sea;  so  shall  the  sea  cease 
raging  agaiiist  you :  for  I  am  sure  that  it  is  on  my 
account  that  this  great  tempest  is  risen  ttpon  you.  And 
the  men  laboured^  with  the  oars  to  bring  the  ship  to 
land,  and  they  could  not,  for  the  sea  grew  more  and 
more  stormy  against  them.  So  they  called  on  Jehovah 
and  said,  Jehovah,  let  us  not  perish,  we  pray  Thee,  for 
the  life  of  this  man,  neither  bring  innocent  blood  upon 
us :  for  Thou  art  Jehovah,  Thou  doest  as  Thou  pleasest. 
Then  they  took  up  Jonah  and  cast  him  into  the  sea, 
and  the  sea  stilled  from  its  raging.     But  the  men  were 

'  Heb.  ropes. 

^  The  wordsybr  whose  sake  is  this  evil  come  tipon  its  do  not  occur 
in  LXX.  and  are  unnecessary. 

^  Wellhausen  suspects  this  form  of  the  Divine  title. 


520  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

in  great  awe  of  Jehovah,  and  sacrificed  to  Him   and 
vowed  vows. 

How  very  real  it  is  and  how  very  noble  1  We  see 
the  storm,  and  then  we  forget  the  storm  in  the  joy  of 
that  generous  contest  between  heathen  and  Hebrew. 
But  the  glory  of  the  passage  is  the  change  in  Jonah 
himself.  It  has  been  called  his  punishment  and  the  / 
conversion  of  the  heathen.  Rather  it  is  his  own  / 
conversion.  He  meets  again  not  only  God,  but  the 
truth  from  which  he  fled.  He  not  only  meets  that 
truth,  but  he  offers  his  life  for  it. 

The  art  is  consummate.  The  writer  will  first  reduce 
the  prophet  and  the  heathen  whom  he  abhors  to  the 
elements  of  their  common  humanity.  As  men  have 
sometimes  seen  upon  a  mass  of  wreckage  or  on  an  ice- 
floe a  number  of  wild  animals,  by  nature  foes  to  each 
other,  reduced  to  peace  through  their  common  danger, 
so  we  descry  the  prophet  and  his  natural  enemies 
upon  the  strained  and  breaking  ship.  In  the  midst  of 
the  storm  they  are  equally  helpless,  and  they  cast  for  all 
the  lot  which  has  no  respect  of  persons.  But  from 
this  the  story  passes  quickly,  to  show  how  Jonah  feels 
not  only  the  human  kinship  of  these  heathen  with 
himself,  but  their  susceptibihty  to  the  knowledge  of 
his  God.  They  pray  to  Jehovah  as  the  God  of  the 
sea  and  the  dry  land  ;  while  we  may  be  sure  that 
the  prophet's  confession,  and  the  story  of  his  own 
relation  to  that  God,  forms  as  powerful  an  exhorta- 
tion to  repentance  as  any  he  could  have  preached 
in  Niniveh.  At  least  it  produces  the  effects  which 
he  has  dreaded.  In  these  sailors  he  sees  heathen 
turned  to  the  fear  of  the  Lord.  All  that  he  has  fled 
to  avoid  happens  there  before  his  eyes  and  through 
his  own  mediation. 


Jonah i.]  THE   GREAT  REFUSAL  521 

The  climax  is  reached,  however,  neither  when  Jonah 
feels  his  common  humanity  with  the  heathen  nor 
when  he  discovers  their  awe  of  his  God,  but  when 
in  order  to  secure  for  them  God's  sparing  mercies 
he  offers  his  own  life  instead.  Take  me  up  and  cast 
me  into  the  sea;  so  shall  the  sea  cease  from  raging 
against  you.  After  their  pity  for  him  has  wrestled 
for  a  time  with  his  honest  entreaties,  he  becomes  their 
sacrifice. 


In  all  this  story  perhaps  the  most  instructive  pass- 
ages are  those  which  lay  bare  to  us  the  method  of  God!;?, 
revelation.  When  we  were'^ildren  this  was  shown 
to  us  in  pictures  of  angels  bending  from  heaven  to 
guide  Isaiah's  pen,  or  to  cry  Jonah's  commission  to 
him  through  a  trumpet.  And  when  we  grew  older, 
although  we  learned  to  dispense  with  that  machinery, 
yet  its  infection  remained,  and  our  conception  of  the 
whole  process  was  mechanical  still.  We  thought  of 
the  prophets  as  of  another  order  of  things ;  we 
released  them  from  our  own  laws  of  life  and  thought, 
and  we  paid  the  penalty  by  losing  all  interest  in  them. 
But  the  prophets  were  human,  and  their  inspiration 
came  through  experience.  The  source  of  it,  as  this 
story  shows,  was  God.  Partly  from  His  guidance 
of  their  nation,  partly  through  close  communion  with 
Himself,  they  received  new  convictions  of  His  character. 
Yet  they  did  not  receive  these  mechanically.  They 
spake  neither  at  the  bidding  of  angels,  nor  like  heathen 
prophets  in  trance  or  ecstasy,  but  as  they  were  moved 
by  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  the  Spirit  worked  upon  them 
first  as  the  influence  of  God's  character,^  and  second 

'  /  knew  how  Thou  art  a  God  gracious. 


522 


THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 


through   the  experience  of  life.     God   and  life — these 
are  all  the  postulates  for  revelation. 

At  first  Jonah  fled  from  the  truth,  at  last  he  laid 
down  his  life  for  it.  So  God  still  forces  us  to  the 
acceptance  of  new  light  and  the  performance  of  strange 
duties.  Men  turn  from  these,  because  of  sloth  or 
prejudice,  but  in  the  end  they  have  to  face  them,  and 
then  at  what  a  cost  I  In  youth  they  shirk  a  self-denial 
to  which  in  some  storm  of  later  life  they  have  to  bend 
with  heavier,  and  often  hopeless,  hearts.  For  their 
narrow  prejudices  and  refusals,  God  punishes  them  by 
bringing  them  into  pain  that  stings,  or  into  responsi- 
bihty  for  others  that  shames,  these  out  of  them.  The 
drama  of  life  is  thus  intensified  in  interest  and  beauty ; 
characters  emerge  heroic  and  sublime. 

"But,  oh  the  labour, 
O  prince,  the  pain  !  " 

Sometimes  the  neglected  duty  is  at  last  achieved 
only  at  the  cost  of  a  man's  breath;  and  the  truth, 
which  might  have  been  the  bride  of  his  youth  and  his 
comrade  through  a  long  life,  is  recognised  by  him  only 
in  the  features  of  Death. 


CHAPTER    XXXVI 

THE  GREAT  FISH  AND   WHAT  IT  MEANS— 
THE  PSALM 

Jonah  ii 

AT  this  point  in  the  tale  appears  the  Great  Fish. 
And  Jehovah  prepared  a  great  fish  to  swallow  Jonah^ 
and  Jonah  was  in  the  belly  of  the  fish  three  days  and  three 
nights. 

After  the  very  natural  story  which  we  have  followed, 
this  verse  obtrudes  itself  with  a  shock  of  unreality  and 
grotesqueness.  What  an  anticlimax  I  say  some ;  what 
a  clumsy  intrusion  I  So  it  is  if  Jonah  be  taken  as  an  . 
individual.  But  if  we  keep  in  mind  that  he  stands  here,  \ 
not  for  himself,  but  for  his  nation,  the  difficulty  and  the 
grotesqueness  disappear.  It  is  Israel's  ill-will  to  the 
heathen,  Israel's  refusal  of  her  mission,  Israel's  em- 
barkation on  the  stormy  sea  of  the  world's  politics, 
which  we  have  had  described  as  Jonah's.  Upon  her 
flight  from  God's  will  there  followed  her  Exile,  and  from 
her  Exile,  which  was  for  a  set  period,  she  came  back 
to  her  own  land,  a  people  still,  and  still  God's  servant 
to  the  heathen.  How  was  the  author  to  express  this 
national  death  and  resurrection  ?  In  conformity  with 
the  popular  language  of  his  time,  he  had  described 
Israel's  turning  from  God's  will  by  her  embarkation  on 
a  stormy  sea,  always  the  symbol  of  the  prophets  for 

523 


X 


524  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

the  tossing  heathen  world  that  was  ready  to  engulf 
her ;  and  now  to  express  her  exile  and  return  he  sought 
metaphors  in  the  same  rich  poetry  of  the  popular 
imagination. 

To  the  Israelite  who  watched  from  his  hills  that 
stormy  coast  on  which  the  waves  hardly  ever  cease 
to  break  in  their  impotent  restlessness,  the  sea  was  a 
symbol  of  arrogance  and  futile  defiance  to  the  will  of 
God.  The  popular  mythology  of  the  Semites  had 
filled  it  with  turbulent  monsters,  snakes  and  dragons 
who  wallowed  like  its  own  waves,  helpless  against  the 
bounds  set  to  them,  or  rose  to  wage  war  against  the 
gods  in  heaven  and  the  great  lights  which  they  had 
created  ;  but  a  god  slays  them  and  casts  their  carcases 
for  meat  and  drink  to  the  thirsty  people  of  the  desert.^ 
It  is  a  symbol  of  the  perpetual  war  between  light  and 
darkness ;  the  dragons  are  the  clouds,  the  slayer  the 
sun.  A  variant  form,  which  approaches  closely  to  that 
of  Jonah's  great  fish,  is  still  found  in  Palestine.  In 
May  1 89 1  I  witnessed  at  Hasbeya,  on  the  western 
skirts  of  Hermon,  an  eclipse  of  the  moon.  When  the 
shadow  began  to  creep  across  her  disc,  there  rose 
from  the  village  a  hideous  din  of  drums,  metal  pots 
and  planks  of  wood  beaten  together ;  guns  were  fired, 
and  there  was  much  shouting.  I  was  told  that  this 
was  done  to  terrify  the  great  fish  which  was  swallowing 
the  moon,  and  to  make  him  disgorge  her. 

Now  these  purely  natural  myths  were  applied  by 
the  prophets  and  poets  of  the  Old  Testament  to  the 
illustration,  not  only  of  Jehovah's  sovereignty  over  the 
storm  and  the  night,  but  of  His  conquest  of  the  heathen 


*  For  the  Babylonian  myths  see  Sayce's  Hibbert  Lectures ;  George 
Smith's  Assyrian  Discoveries ;  and  Gunkel,  Schdpfung  u.  Chaos. 


Jonah  ii.]     THE  GREAT  FISH  AND  WHAT  IT  MEANS     525 


powers  who  had  enslaved  His  people.^  Isaiah  had 
heard  in  the  sea  the  confusion  and  rage  of  the  peoples 
against  the  bulwark  which  Jehovah  set  around  Israel ;  ^ 
but  it  is  chiefly  from  the  time  of  the  Exile  onward  that 
the  myths  themselves,  with  their  cruel  monsters  and 
the  prey  of  these,  are  applied  to  the  great  heathen 
powers  and  their  captive,  Israel.  One  prophet  ex- 
plicitly describes  the  Exile  of  Israel  as  the  swallowing 
of  the  nation  by  the  monster,  the  Babylonian  tyrant, 
whom  God  forces  at  last  to  disgorge  its  prey.  Israel 
says :  ^  Nebuchadrezzar  the  king  of  Babylon  hath  de- 
voured me  ^  and  crushed  me^^  .  .  .  he  hath  swallowed  me 
up  like  the  Dragon^  filling  his  belly,  from  my  delights  he 
hath  cast  me  out.  But  Jehovah  replies  :  ^  /  will  punish 
Bel  in  Babylon,  and  I  will  bring  out  of  his  mouth  thai 
which  he  hath  swallowed.  .  .  .  My  people,  go  ye  out  of  the 
midst  of  her. 

It  has  been  justly  remarked  by  Canon  Cheyne  that 
this  passage  may  be  considered  as  the  intervening  link 
between  the  original  form  of  the  myth  and  the  applica- 
tion of  it  made  in  the  story  of  Jonah. ^  To  this  the 
objection  might  be  offered  that  in  the  story  of  Jonah 
the  great  fish  is  not  actually  represented  as  the  means 
of  the  prophet's  temporary  destruction,  like  the  monster 
in  Jeremiah  li.,  but  rather  as  the  vessel  of  his  deliver- 


'  Passages  in  which  this  class  of  myths  are  taken  in  a  physical 
sense  are  Job  iii.  8,  vii.  12,  xxvi.  12,  13,  etc.,  etc. ;  and  passages  in 
which  it  is  applied  politically  are  Isa.  xxvii.  i,  li.  9;  Jer.  li.  34,  44; 
Psalm  Ixxiv.,  etc.     See  Gunkel,  Schopfung  ti.  Chaos. 

•  Chap.  xvii.  1 2- 14, 
'^  Jer.  li.  34. 

*  Heb.  margin,  LXX.  and  Syr.  ;  Heb.  text  us. 
'  Jer.  li.  44,  45. 

"  Cheyne,  Theol.  Rev.,  XIV.    See  above,  p.  503. 


526  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

ance.^  This  is  true,  yet  it  only  means  that  our  author 
has  still  further  adapted  the  very  plastic  material 
offered  him  by  this  much  transformed  myth.  But  we 
do  not  depend  for  our  proof  upon  the  comparison  of  a 
single  passage.  Let  the  student  of  the  Book  of  Jonah 
read  carefully  the  many  passages  of  the  Old  Testament, 
in  which  the  sea  or  its  monsters  rage  in  vain  against 
Jehovah,  or  are  harnessed  and  led  about  by  Him  ;  or 
still  more  those  passages  in  which  His  conquest  of 
these  monsters  is  made  to  figure  His  conquest  of  the 
heathen  powers,^ — and  the  conclusion  will  appear  irre- 
sistible that  the  story  of  the  great  fish  and  of  Jonah  the 
type  of  Israel  is  drawn  from  the  same  source.  Such  a 
solution  of  the  problem  has  one  great  advantage.  It 
relieves  us  of  the  grotesqueness  which  attaches  to  the 
literal  conception  of  the  story,  and  of  the  necessity  of 
those  painful  efforts  for  accounting  for  a  miracle  which 
have  distorted  the  common-sense  and  even  the  ortho- 
doxy of  so  many  commentators  of  the  book.^  We  are 
dealing,  let  us  remember,  with  poetry — a  poetry  inspired 
by  one  of  the  most  sublime  truths  of  the  Old  Testament, 
but  whose  figures  are  drawn  from  the  legends  and  myths 
of  the  people  to  whom  it  is  addressed.  To  treat  this 
as  prose  is  not  only  to  sin  against  the  common-sense 
which  God  has  given  us,  but  against  the  simple  and 
obvious  intention  of  the  author.  It  is  blindness  both 
to  reason  and  to  Scripture. 

*  See  above,  p.  511,  on  the  Psalm  of  Jonah. 

^  Above,  p.  525,  n.  i. 

^  It  is  very  interesting  to  notice  how  many  commentators  Qe.g. 
Pusey,  and  the  English  edition  of  Lange)  who  take  the  story  in  its 
individual  meaning,  and  therefore  as  miraculous,  immediately  try  to 
minimise  the  miracle  by  quoting  stories  of  great  fishes  who  have 
swallowed  men,  and  even  men  in  armour,  whole,  and  in  one  case  at 
least  have  vomited  them  up  alive  ! 


Jonah  ii.]  THE  PSALM  527 

'  These  views  are  confirmed  by  an  examination  of  the 
Psalm  or  Prayer  which  is  put  into  Jonah's  mouth  while 
he  is  yet  in  the  fish.  We  have  already  seen  what 
grounds  there  are  for  believing  that  the  Psalm  belongs 
to  the  author's  own  plan,  and  from  the  beginning 
appeared  just  where  it  does  now.^  But  we  may  also 
point  out  how,  in  consistence  with  its  context,  this 
is  a  Psalm,  not  of  an  individual  Israelite,  but  of  the 
nation  as  a  whole.  It  is  largely  drawn  from  the 
national  liturgy.^  It  is  full  of  cries  which  we  know, 
though  they  are  expressed  in  the  singular  number,  to 
have  been  used  of  the  whole  people,  or  at  least  of  that 
pious  portion  of  them,  who  were  Israel  indeed.  True 
that  in  the  original  portion  of  the  Psalm,  and  by  far  its 
most  beautiful  verses,  we  seem  to  have  the  description 
of  a  drowning  man  swept  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 
But  even  here,  the  colossal  scenery  and  the  magnificent 
hyperbole  of  the  language  suit  not  the  experience  of 
an  individual,  but  the  extremities  of  that  vast  gulf  of 
exile  into  which  a  whole  nation  was  plunged.  It  is  a 
nation's  carcase  which  rolls  upon  those  infernal  tides 
that  swirl  among  the  roots  of  mountains  and  behind 
the  barred  gates  of  earth.  Finally,  vv.  9  and  10  are 
obviously  a  contrast,  not  between  the  individual  prophet 
and  the  heathen,  but  between  the  true  Israel,  who  in 
exile  preserve  their  loyalty  to  Jehovah,  and  those 
Jews  who,  forsaking  their  covenant-love^  lapse  to 
idolatry.  We  find  many  parallels  to  this  in  exilic 
and  post-exilic  literature. 

And  Jonah  prayed  to  Jehovah  his  God  from  the  belly 
of  the  fishy  and  said : — 

/  cried  out  of  my  anguish   to  Jehovah,  and  He 
answered  me; 

*  See  above,  pp.  51 1  f.       ^  See  above,  p.  511,  nn,  i,  2. 


528  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

From  the   belly  of  Inferno   I  sought  help — Thou 

heardest  my  voice. 
For  Thou  hadst  ^  cast  me  into  the  depth,  to  the  heart 

of  the  seas,  and  the  flood  rolled  around  me  ; 
All  Thy  breakers  and  billows  went  over  me. 
Then  I  said,  I  am  hurled  from  Thy  sight : 
How'^  shall  I  ever  again    look  towards    Thy  holy 

temple  ? 
Waters  enwrapped  me  to  the  soul;  the  Deep  rolled 

around  me; 
The  tangle  was  bound  about  my  head. 
I  was  gone  down  to  the  roots  of  the  hills  ; 
Earth  and  her  bars  ivere  behind  me  for  ever. 
But  Thou  broughtest  my  life  up  from  destruction, 

Jehovah  my  God! 
When   my  soid  fainted  upon   me,   I  remembered 

Jehovah, 
And  my  prayer  came  in  unto  Thee,  to   Thy  holy 

temple. 
They  that  observe  the  idols  of  vanity, 
They  forsake  their  covenant-love. 
But  to  the  sound  of  praise  I  will  sacrifice  to  Thee; 
What  I  have  vowed  I  will  perform. 
Salvation  is  JehovaUs. 

And  Jehovah   spake  to   the  fish,   and  it  threw    up 
Jonah  on  the  dry  land. 


'  The  grammar,  which  usually  expresses  result,  more  literally  runs, 
And  Thou  didst  cast  me;  but  after  the  preceding  verse  it  must  be 
taken  not  as  expressing  consequence  but  cause. 

'^  Read  "q^NI  for  "qKj  and  with  the  LXX.  take  the  sentence  in- 
terrogatively. 


CHAPTER    XXXVII 

THE  REPENTANCE   OF  THE  CITY 
Jonah  iii 

HAVING  learned,  through  suffering,  his  moral 
kinship  with  the  heathen,  and  having  offered  his 
life  for  some  of  them,  Jonah  receives  a  second  com- 
mand to  go  to  Niniveh.  He  obeys,  but  with  his  pre- 
judice as  strong  as  though  it  had  never  been  humbled, 
nor  met  by  Gentile  nobleness.  The  first  part  of  his 
story  appears  to  have  no  consequences  in  the  second.^ 
But  this  is  consistent  with  the  writer's  purpose  to  treat 
Jonah  as  if  he  were  Israel.  For,  upon  their  return 
from  Exile,  and  in  spite  of  all  their  new  knowledge 
of  themselves  and  the  world,  Israel  continued  to 
cherish  their  old  grudge  against  the  Gentiles. 

And  the  word  of  Jehovah  came  to  Jonah  the  ^second 
time,  saying,  Up,  go  to  Ninivehy  the  great  city,  and  call 
unto  her  with  the  call  which  I  shall  tell  thee.  And 
Jonah  arose  and  went  to  Niniveh,  as  Jehovah  said. 
Now  Niniveh  was  a  city  great  before  God,  three  days^ 
journey   through  and  through.^     And  Jonah  began    by 

'  Only  in  iii.  i,  second  time,  and  in  iv.  2  are  there  any  references 
from  the  second  to  the  first  part  of  the  book. 

-  The  diameter  rather  than  the  circumference  seems  intended 
by  the  writer,  if  we  can  judge  by  his  sending  the  prophet  one  day's 
journey  through  the  city.  Some,  however,  take  the  circumference  as 
meant,  and  this  agrees  with  the  computation  of  sixty  English  miles 
as  the  girth  of  the  greater  Niniveh  described  below. 

VOL.  II.  529  34 


530  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

going  through  the  city  one  day's  journey y  and  he  cried  and 
said.  Forty  ^  days  more  and  Niniveh  shall  be  overturned. 
Opposite  to  Mosul,  the  well-known  emporium  of  trade 
on  the  right  bank  of  the  Upper  Tigris,  two  high 
artificial  mounds  now  Hft  themselves  from  the  other- 
wise level  plain.  The  more  northerly  takes  the  name' 
of  Kujundschik,  or  ^'little  lamb,"  after  the  Turkish 
village  which  couches  pleasantly  upon  its  north- 
eastern slope.  The  other  is  called  in  the  popular 
dialect  Nebi  Yunus,  "Prophet  Jonah,"  after  a  mosque 
dedicated  to  him,  which  used  to  be  a  Christian 
church  ;  but  the  official  name  is  Niniveh.  These  two 
mounds  are  bound  to  each  other  on  the  west  by  a 
broad  brick  wall,  which  extends  beyond  them  both, 
and  is  connected  north  and  south  by  other  walls, 
with  a  circumference  in  all  of  about  nine  English  miles. 
The  interval,  including  the  mounds,  was  covered  with 
buildings,  whose  ruins  still  enable  us  to  form  some 
idea  of  what  was  for  centuries  the  wonder  of  the 
world.  Upon  terraces  and  substructions  of  enormous 
breadth  rose  storied  palaces,  arsenals,  barracks, 
libraries  and  temples,  A  lavish  water  system  spread 
in  all  directions  from  canals  with  massive  embankments 
and  sluices.  Gardens  were  lifted  into  mid-air,  filled 
with  rich  plants  and  rare  and  beautiful  animals. 
Alabaster,  silver,  gold  and  precious  stones  relieved  the 
dull  masses  of  brick  and  flashed  sunlight  from  every 
frieze  and  battlement.  The  surrounding  walls  were  so 
broad  that  chariots  could  roll  abreast  on  them.  The 
gates,  and  especially  the  river  gates,  were  very  massive.^ 

'  LXX.  Codd.  B,  etc.,  read  three  days;  other  Codd.  have  the  forty 
of  the  Heb.  text. 

2  For  a  more  detailed  description  of  Niniveh  jsee  above  on  the 
Book  of  Nahum,  pp.  98  ff. 


Jonah  iii.]       THE  REPENTANCE   OF   THE  CITY  531 

All  this  was  Niniveh  proper,  whose  glory  the 
Hebrews  envied  and  over  whose  fall  more  than  one 
of  their  prophets  exult.  But  this  was  not  the  Niniveh 
to  which  our  author  saw  Jonah  come.  Beyond  the 
walls  were  great  suburbs/  and  beyond  the  suburbs 
other  towns,  league  upon  league  of  dwellings,  so 
closely  set  upon  the  plain  as  to  form  one  vast  complex 
of  population,  which  is  known  to  Scripture  as  The 
Great  City}  To  judge  from  the  ruins  which  still  cover 
the  ground,^  the  circumference  must  have  been  about 
sixty  miles,  or  three  days' journey.  It  is  these  nameless 
leagues  of  common  dwellings  which  roll  before  us  in 
the  story.  None  of  those  glories  of  Niniveh  are 
mentioned,  of  which  other  prophets  speak,  but  the 
only  proofs  offered  to  us  of  the  city's  greatness  are  its 
extent  and  its  population.^  Jonah  is  sent  to  three 
days,  not  of  mighty  buildings,  but  of  homes  and 
families,  to  the  Niniveh,  not  of  kings  and  their  glories, 
but  of  men,  women  and  children,  besides  much  cattle. 
The  palaces  and  temples  he  may  pass  in  an  hour  or 
two,  but  from  sunrise  to  sunset  he  treads  the  dim 
drab  mazes  where  the  people  dwell. 

When  we  open  our  hearts  for  heroic  witness  to 
the  truth  there  rush  upon  them  glowing  memories 
of  Moses  before  Pharaoh,  of  Elijah  before  Ahab,  of 
Stephen  before  the  Sanhedrim,  of  Paul  upon  Areopagus, 
of  Galileo  before  the  Inquisition,  of  Luther  at  the 
Diet.       But  it    takes    a   greater   heroism    to    face    the 

»  vy  ninn-i,  Gen.  x.  n. 

-  Gen.  X.  12,  according  to  which  the  Great  City  included,  besides 
Niniveh,  at  least  Resen  and  Kelach. 

^  And  taking  the  present  Kujundschik,  Nimrud,  Khorsabad  and 
Balawat  as  the  four  corners  of  the  district. 

*  iii.  2,  iv.  II. 


532  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

people  than  a  king,  to  convert  a  nation  than  to 
persuade  a  senate.  Princes  and  assemblies  of  the 
wise  stimulate  the  imagination  ;  they  drive  to  bay  all 
the  nobler  passions  of  a  solitary  man.  But  there  is 
nothing  to  help  the  heart,  and  therefore  its  courage 
is  all  the  greater,  which  bears  witness  before  those 
endless  masses,  in  monotone  of  life  and  colour,  that 
now  paralyse  the  imagination  like  long  stretches  of 
sand  when  the  sea  is  out,  and  again  terrify  it  like 
the  resistless  rush  of  the  flood  beneath  a  hopeless 
evening  sky. 

It  is,  then,  with  an  art  most  fitted  to  his  high 
purpose  that  our  author— unlike  all  other  prophets, 
whose  aim  was  different — presents  to  us,  not  the 
description  of  a  great  military  power :  king,  nobles 
and  armed  battalions :  but  the  vision  of  those  mono- 
tonous millions.  He  strips  his  country's  foes  of 
everything  foreign,  everything  provocative  of  envy 
and  hatred,  and  unfolds  them  to  Israel  only  in  their 
teeming  humanity.^ 

His  next  step  is  still  more  grand.  For  this  teeming 
humanity  he  claims  the  universal  human  possibility 
of  repentance — that  and  nothing  more. 

Under  every  form  and  character  of  human  life, 
beneath  all  needs  and  all  habits,  deeper  than  despair 
and  more  native  to  man  than  sin  itself,  lies  the  power 
of  the  heart  to  turn.  It  was  this  and  not  hope  that 
remained  at  the  bottom  of  Pandora's  Box  when  every 
other  gift  had  fled.  For  this  is  the  indispensable 
secret  of  hope.  It  lies  in  every  heart,  needing  indeed 
some  dream  of  Divine  mercy,  however  far  and  vague, 


'  Compare  the   Book   of  Jonah,  for  instance,  with  the  Book  of 
Nahum. 


Jonah  iii.]       THE  REPENTANCE  OF  THE  CITY  533 


to  rouse  it ;  but  when  roused,  neither  ignorance  of  God, 
nor  pride,  nor  long  obduracy  of  evil  may  withstand  it. 
It  takes  command  of  the  whole  nature  of  a  man,  and 
speeds  from  heart  to  heart  with  a  violence,  that  like 
pain  and  death  spares  neither  age  nor  rank  nor  degree 
of  culture.  This  primal  human  right  is  all  our  author 
claims  for  the  men  of  Niniveh.  He  has  been  blamed 
for  telling  us  an  impossible  thing,  that  a  whole  city 
should  be  converted  at  the  call  of  a  single  stranger ; 
and  others  have  started  up  in  his  defence  and  quoted 
cases  in  which  large  Oriental  populations  have  actually 
been  stirred  by  the  preaching  of  an  alien  in  race  and 
religion ;  and  then  it  has  been  replied,  "  Granted  the 
possibility,  granted  the  fact  in  other  cases,  yet  where 
in  history  have  we  any  trace  of  this  alleged  conversion 
of  all  Niniveh  ?  "  and  some  scoff,  ''  How  could  a  Hebrew 
have  made  himself  articulate  in  one  day  to  those 
Assyrian  multitudes  ?  " 

How  long,  O  Lord,  must  Thy  poetry  suffer  from 
those  who  can  only  treat  it  as  prose  ?  On  whatever 
side  they  stand,  sceptical  or  orthodox,  they  are  equally 
pedants,  quenchers  of  the  spiritual,  creators  of  unbelief. 

Our  author,  let  us  once  for  all  understand,  makes  no 
attempt  to  record  an  historical  conversion  of  this  vast 
heathen  city.  For  its  men  he  claims  only  the  primary 
human  possibility  of  repentance ;  expressing  himself 
not  in  this  general  abstract  way,  but  as  Orientals,  to 
whom  an  illustration  is  ever  a  proof,  love  to  have  it 
done — by  story  or  parable.  With  magnificent  reserve 
he  has  not  gone  further;  but  only  told  into  the 
prejudiced  faces  of  his  people,  that  out  there,  beyond 
the  Covenant,  in  the  great  world  lying  in  darkness, 
there  live,  not  beings  created  for  ignorance  and  hostility 
to  God,  elect  for  destruction,  but  men  with  consciences 


\ 


534  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

and  hearts,  able  to  turn  at  His  Word  and  to  hope  in 
His  Mercy — that  to  the  farthest  ends  of  the  world,  and 
even  on  the  high  places  of  unrighteousness.  Word  and 
Mercy  work  just  as  they  do  within  the  Covenant. 

The  fashion  in  which  the  repentance  of  Niniveh  is 
described  is  natural  to  the  time  of  the  writer.  It  is 
a  national  repentance,  of  course,  and  though  swelling 
upwards  from  the  people,  it  is  confirmed  and  organised 
by  the  authorities  :  for  we  are  still  in  the  Old  Dispensa- 
tion, when  the  picture  of  a  complete  and  thorough 
repentance  could  hardly  be  otherwise  conceived.  And 
the  beasts  are  made  to  share  its  observance,  as  in  the 
Orient  they  always  shared  and  still  share  in  funeral 
pomp  and  trappings.^  It  may  have  been,  in  addition, 
a  personal  pleasure  to  our  writer  to  record  the  part 
of  the  animals  in  the  movement.  See  how,  later  on, 
he  tells  us  that  for  their  sake  also  God  had  pity  upon 
Niniveh. 

And  the  men  of  Niniveh  believed  upon  Gody  and  cried 
a  fast,  and  from  the  greatest  of  them  to  the  least  of  them 
they  put  on  sackcloth.  And  word  came  to  the  king  of 
Niniveh,  and  he  rose  off  his  throne,  and  cast  his  mantle 
from  upon  him,  and  dressed  in  sackcloth  and  sat  in  the 
dust.     And  he  sent  criers  to  say  in  Niniveh : — 

By  Order  of  the  King  and  his  Nobles,  thus : — Man 
and  Beast,  Oxen  and  Sheep,  shall  not  taste  anything, 
neither  eat  nor  drink  water.  But  let  them  clothe  them- 
selves  ^  in  sackcloth,  both  man  and  beast,  and  call  upon 
God  with  power,  and  turn  every  man  from  his  evil  way 
and  from  every  zvrong  which  they  have  in  hand.     Who 


»  Cf.  Herod.  IX.  24  ;  Joel  i.  18;  Virgil,  EclogueV.,  ^nei'ciXl.  89  ff. 
Plutarch,  Alex.  72. 

2  LXX. :  and  they  did  clothe  themselves  in  sackcloth,  and  so  on. 


Jonah  iii.]       THE  REPENTANCE  OF  THE  CITY  535 

knoweth  but  that  God  may '^  relent  and  turn  from  the  fierce- 
ness of  His  wrath,  that  we  perish  not  ?  ^ 

And  God  saw  their  doings,  how  they  turned  from  their 
evil  way;  and  God  relented  of  the  evil  which  He  said  He 
would  do  to  them,  and  did  it  not. 

'  So  LXX.     Heb.  text :  may  turn  and  relent,  and  turn. 

2  The  alleged  discrepancies  in  this  account  have  been  already 
noticed.  As  the  text  stands  the  fast  and  mourning  are  proclaimed 
and  actually  begun  before  word  reaches  the  king  and  his  proclama- 
tion of  fast  and  mourning  goes  forth.  The  discrepancies  might  be 
removed  by  transferring  the  words  in  ver.  6,  and  they  cried  a  fast, 
and  from  the  greatest  of  them  to  the  least  they  clothed  themselves  in 
sackcloth,  to  the  end  of  ver.  8,  with  a  "10X7  or  1'lOX''')  to  introduce 
ver.  9.  But,  as  said  above  (pp.  499,  510,  n.  i),  it  is  more  probable 
that  the  text  as  it  stands  was  original,  and  that  the  inconsistencies 
in  the  order  of  the  narrative  are  due  to  its  being  a  tale  or  parable. 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII 

ISRAELS  JEALOUSY  OF  JEHOVAH 

Jonah  iv 

HAVING  illustrated  the  truth,  that  the  Gentiles 
are  capable  of  repentance  unto  life,  the  Book 
now  describes  the  effect  of  their  escape  upon  Jonah,  and 
closes  by  revealing  God's  full  heart  upon  the  matter. 

Jonah  is  very  angry  that  Niniveh  has  been  spared. 
Is  this  (as  some  say)  because  his  own  word  has  not 
been  fulfilled  ?  In  Israel  there  was  an  accepted  rule 
that  a  prophet  should  be  judged  by  the  issue  of  his 
predictions  :  If  thou  say  in  thine  hearty  How  shall  we 
know  the  word  which  Jehovah  hath  not  spoken  ? — when  a 
prophet  speaketh  in  the  name  of  Jehovah^  if  the  thing 
follow  not  nor  come  to  pass,  that  is  the  thing  which 
Jehovah  hath  not  spoken,  but  the  prophet  hath  spoken 
presumptuously,  thou  shall  have  no  reverence  for  him} 
Was  it  this  that  stung  Jonah  ?  Did  he  ask  for  death 
because  men  would  say  of  him  that  when  he  predicted 
Niniveh's  overthrow  he  was  false  and  had  not  God's 
word  ?  Of  such  fears  there  is  no  trace  in  the  story. 
Jonah  never  doubts  that  his  word  came  from  Jehovah, 
nor  dreads  that  other  men  will  doubt.  There  is 
absolutely  no  hint  of  anxiety  as  to  his  professional 
reputation.      But,   on   the   contrary,  Jonah   says   that 

'  Deut.  xviii.  21,  22. 
536 


Jonah  iv.]      ISRAELS  JEALOUSY  OF  JEHOVAH  537 

from  the  first  he  had  the  foreboding,  grounded  upon 
his  knowledge  of  God's  character,  that  Niniveh  would 
be  spared,  and  that  it  was  from  this  issue  he  shrank 
and  fled  to  go  to  Tarshish.  In  short  he  could  not,  either 
then  or  now,  master  his  conviction  that  the  heathen 
should  be  destroyed.  His  grief,  though  foolish,  is  not 
selfish.  He  is  angry,  not  at  the  bafQing  of  his  word,  but 
at  God's  forbearance  with  the  foes  and  tyrants  of  Israel. 
Now,  as  in  all  else,  so  in  this,  Jonah  is  the  type  of 
his  people.  If  we  can  judge  from  their  literature 
after  the  Exile,  they  were  not  troubled  by  the  non- 
fulfilment  of  prophecy,  except  as  one  item  of  what 
was  the  problem  of  their  faith — the  continued  prosperity 
of  the  Gentiles.  And  this  was  not,  what  it  appears 
to  be  in  some  Psalms,  only  an  intellectual  problem 
or  an  offence  to  their  sense  of  justice.  Nor  could  they 
meet  it  always,  as  some  of  their  prophets  did,  with  a 
supreme  intellectual  scorn  of  the  heathen,  and  in  the 
proud  confidence  that  they  themselves  were  the  favour- 
ites of  God.  For  the  knowledge  that  God  was  infinitely 
gracious  haunted  their  pride ;  and  from  the  very  heart 
of  their  faith  arose  a  jealous  fear  that  He  would  show 
His  grace  to  others  than  themselves.  To  us  it  may 
be  difficult  to  understand  this  temper.  We  have  not 
been  trained  to  believe  ourselves  an  elect  people  ; 
nor  have  we  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  heathen. 
Yet,  at  least,  we  have  contemporaries  and  fellow- 
Christians  among  whom  we  may  find  still  alive  many 
of  the  feelings  against  which  the  Book  of  Jonah  was 
written.  Take  the  Oriental  Churches  of  to-day. 
Centuries  of  oppression  have  created  in  them  an  awful 
hatred  of  the  infidel,  beneath  whose  power  they  are 
hardly  suffered  to  live.  The  barest  justice  calls  for 
the  overthrow  of  their  oppressors.     That  these  share 


538  THE   TWELVE  PROPHETS 

a  common  humanity  with  themselves  is  a  sense  they 
have  nearly  lost.  For  centuries  they  have  had  no 
spiritual  intercourse  with  them ;  to  try  to  convert  a 
Mohammedan  has  been  for  twelve  hundred  years  a 
capital  crime.  It  is  not  wonderful  that  Eastern 
Christians  should  have  long  lost  power  to  believe  in 
the  conversion  of  infidels,  and  to  feel  that  anything 
is  due  but  their  destruction.  The  present  writer  once 
asked  a  cultured  and  devout  layman  of  the  Greek 
Church,  Why  then  did  God  create  so  many  Moham- 
medans ?  The  answer  came  hot  and  fast :  To  fill  up 
Hell  1  Analogous  to  this  were  the  feelings  of  the 
Jews  towards  the  peoples  who  had  conquered  and 
oppressed  them.  But  the  jealousy  already  alluded 
to  aggravated  these  feelings  to  a  rigour  no  Christian 
can  ever  share.  What  right  had  God  to  extend  to 
their  oppressors  His  love  for  a  people  who  alone  had 
witnessed  and  suffered  for  Him,  to  whom  He  had 
bound  Himself  by  so  many  exclusive  promises,  whom 
He  had  called  His  Bride,  His  Darling,  His  Only 
One  ?  And  yet  the  more  Israel  dwelt  upon  that  Love 
the  more  they  were  afraid  of  it.  God  had  been  so 
gracious  and  so  long-suffering  to  themselves  that  they 
could  not  trust  Him  not  to  show  these  mercies  to 
others.  In  which  case,  what  was  the  use  of  their 
uniqueness  and  privilege  ?  What  worth  was  their 
living  any  more  ?     Israel  might  as  well  perish. 

It  is  this  subtle  story  of  Israel's  jealousy  of  Jehovah, 
and  Jehovah's  gentle  treatment  of  it,  which  we  follow 
in  the  last  chapter  of  the  book.  The  chapter  starts 
from  Jonah's  confession  of  a  fear  of  the  results  of  God's 
lovingkindness  and  from  his  persuasion  that,  as  this 
spread  to  the  heathen,  the  life  of  His  servant  spent 
in  opposition  to  the  heathen  was  a  worthless  life ;  and 


Jonah  iv.]      ISRAEL'S  JEALOUSY  OF  JEHOVAH  539 

the  chapter  closes  with  God's  own  vindication  of  His 
Love  to  His  jealous  prophet. 

It  was  a  great  grief  to  Jonah^  and  he  was  angered; 
and  he  prayed  to  Jehovah  and  said:  Ah  now,  Jehovah^ 
while  I  was  still  upon  mine  own  ground,  at  the  time 
that  I  prepared  to  flee  to  Tarshish,  was  not  this  my 
ivord,  that  I  knew  Thee  to  be  a  God  gracious  and  tender, 
long-suffering  and  plenteous  in  love,  relenting  of  evil? 
And  now,  Jehovah,  take,  I  pray  Thee,  my  life  from  me, 
for  for  me  death  is  better  than  life. 

In  this  impatience  of  life  as  well  as  in  some  subse- 
quent traits,  the  story  of  Jonah  reflects  that  of  Elijah. 
But  the  difference  between  the  two"  prophets  was  this, 
that  while  Elijah  was  very  jealous  for  Jehovah,  Jonah 
was  very  jealous  of  Him.  Jonah  could  not  bear  to  see 
the  love  promised  to  Israel  alone,  and  cherished  by  her, 
bestowed  equally  upon  her  heathen  oppressors.  And 
he  behaved  after  the  manner  of  jealousy  and  of  the 
heart  that  thinks  itself  insulted.  He  withdrew,  and 
sulked  in  solitude,  and  would  take  no  responsibility 
nor  further  interest  in  his  work.  Such  men  are  best 
treated  by  a  caustic  gentleness,  a  little  humour,  a  little 
rallying,  a  leaving  to  nature,  and  a  taking  unawares  in 
their  own  confessed  prejudices.  All  these — I  dare  to 
think  even  the  humour — are  present  in  God's  treatment 
of  Jonah.  This  is  very  natural  and  very  beautiful. 
Twice  the  Divine  Voice  speaks  with  a  soft  sarcasm  :  Art 
thou  very  angry  ?  ^     Then   Jonah's   affections,  turned 

'  The  Hebrew  may  be  translated  either,  first,  Doest  thou  zvell  to  be 
angry  ?  or  second,  Art  thou  very  angry  ?  Our  versions  both  prefer 
ihe  first,  though  they  put  the  second  in  the  margin.  The  LXX.  take 
the  second.  That  the  second  is  the  right  one  is  not  only  proved  by 
its  greater  suitableness,  but  by  Jonah's  answer  to  the  question, 
/  am  very  angry,  yea,  even  unto  death. 


S40  THE  TWELVE  PROPHETS 

from  man  and  God,  are  allowed  their  course  with  a  bit  of 
nature,  the  fresh  and  green  companion  of  his  solitude ; 
and  then  when  all  his  pity  for  this  has  been  roused  by 
its  destruction,  that  very  pity  is  employed  to  awaken 
his  sympathy  with  God's  compassion  for  the  great  city, 
and  he  is  shown  how  he  has  denied  to  God  the  same 
natural  affection  which  he  confesses  to  be  so  strong 
in  himself  But  why  try  further  to  expound  so  clear 
and  obvious  an  argument  ? 

But  Jehovah  said,  Art  thou  so  very  angry  ?  Jonah 
would  not  answer — how  lifeHke  is  his  silence  at  this 
point ! — but  went  out  from  the  city  and  sat  down  before 
it^  and  made  him  there  a  booth  and  divelt  beneath  it  in 
the  shade,  till  he  should  see  what  happened  in  the  city. 
And  Jehovah  God  prepared  a  gourd,'^  and  it  grew  up 
above  Jonah  to  be  a  shadow  over  his  head.  .  .  .^  And 
Jonah  rejoiced  in  the  gourd  with  a  great  joy.  But  as 
dawn  came  up  the  next  day  God  prepared  a  worm,  and 
this^  wounded  the  gourd,  that  it  perished.  And  it 
came  to  pass,  when  the  sun  rose,  that  God  prepared  a 
dry  east-wind,^  and  the  sun  smote  on  JonaKs  head,  so 
that  he  was  faint,  and  begged  for  himself  that  he  might 
die,^  saying.   Better  my  dying  than   my  living!    And 

1  Heb.  the  city. 

'  P^lTi?,  ^he   Egyptian   kiki,    the   Ricinus   or   Palma  Christi.     See 
above,  p.  498,  n.  2. 
^  Heb.  adds  to  save  him  from  his  evil,  perhaps  a  gloss. 

*  Heb.  it. 

5  n''K'"'"in..  The  Targum  implies  a  quiet,  i.e.  sweltering,  east  wind. 
Hitzig  thinks  that  the  name  is  derived  from  the  season  of  ploughing 
and  some  modern  proverbs  appear  to  bear  this  out :  an  autumn  east 
wind.  LXX.  avyKaiuv.  Siegfried-Stade :  a  cutting  east  wind,  as  if  from 
^ir\.  Steiner  emends  to  JT'Onn,  as  if  from  Din  =  the  piercing,  a  poetic 
name  of  the  sun;  and  Bohme,  Z.A.T.IV.,  VII.  256,  to  finnn,  from  "inn, 
to  glow.     KOhler  (Theol.  Rev.,  XVI.,  p.  143)  compares  K^^rij  dried  clay. 

*  Heb.  :  begged  his  life,  that  he  might  die. 


Jonah  iv.]      ISRAEL'S  JEALOUSY  OF  JEHOVAH  541 

God  said  unto  Jonah,  Art  thou  so  very  angry  about  the 
gourd?  And  he  said,  I  am  very  angry — even  unto 
death!  And  Jehovah  said:  Thou  care st  for  a  gourd 
for  which  thou  hast  not  travailed,  nor  hast  thou  brought 
it  up,  a  thing  that  came  in  a  night  and  in  a  night  has 
perished}  And  shall  I  not  care  for  Niniveh,  the  Great 
City^  in  which  there  are  more  than  twelve  times  ten 
thousand  human  beings  who  know  not  their  right  hand 
from  their  left,  besides  much  cattle  ? 

God  has  vindicated  His  love  to  the  jealousy  of  those 
v^ho  thought  that  it  was  theirs  alone.  And  we  are  left 
with  this  grand  vague  vision  of  the  immeasurable  city, 
with  its  multitude  of  innocent  children  and  cattle,  and 
God's  compassion  brooding  over  all. 

*  Heb. :  which  was  the  son  of  a  nighty  and  son  of  a  night  has 
perished.  2  Gen.  x.  12. 


INDEX    OF    PROPHETS 

Habakkuk,  Introduction,  115;  Chaps,  i. — ii.  4,  129;  ii.  5-20,  143;  iii., 
149. 

Haggai,  Introduction,  225;  Chap,  i.,  236;  ii.  I-9,  241 ;  ii.  10-19,  244; 
ii.  20-23,  250. 

Joel,  Introduction,  375;  Chaps,  i. — ii.  17,  398;  ii.  18-32,  418;  iii.,  431. 

Jonah,  Introduction,  493;  Chap,  i.,  514;  ii.,  523;  iii.,  529;  iv.,  536. 

"  Malachi,"  Introduction,  331  ;  Chap.  i.  2-5,  349  ;  i.  6-14,  352  ;  ii.  1-9, 
360;  ii.  10-16,  363 ;  ii.  ir— iii.  5,  365  ;  iii.  6-12,  367  ;  iii.  13— iv.  2 
(Eng.;  iii.  13-21  Heb.),  369;  iv.  3-5  (Eng. ;  iii.  22-24  Heb.), 
371. 

Nahum,  Introduction,  77  ;  Chap,  i.,  90;  ii.,  iii.,  96. 

Obadiah,  Introduction,  163;  vv.  I-21,  173,  177. 

Zechariah  (i. — viii.),  Introduction,  255;  Chap.  i.  1-6,  267;  i.  7-17, 
283;  i.  18-21  (Eng.;  ii.  1-4  Heb.),  286 ;  ii.  1-5  (Eng.;  ii.  5-9 
Heb.),  287 ;  iii.,  292 ;  iv.,  297 ;  v.  1-4,  301  ;  v.  5-1 1,  303 ;  vi.  i-8, 
305  ;  vi.  9-15,  307 ;  vii.,  320;  viii.,  323. 

"Zechariah"  (ix. — xiv.).  Introduction,  449;  Chap.  ix.  1-8,  463;  ix. 
9-12,466;  ix.  13-17,  467;  X.  I,  2,  469;  X.  3-12,  470;  xi.  1-3, 
473  ;  xi.  4-17,  473 ;  xii.  1-7,  478  ;  xii.  8— xiii.  6,  481 ;  xiii.  7-9, 
473,  477  ;  xiv.,  485. 

Zephaniah,  Introduction,  35;  Chaps,  i. — ii.  3,  46;  ii.  4-15,  61;  iii. 
1-13,  67;  iii.  14.20,  67,  73. 


543 


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